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Afoot and Afloat in Burma 




Posing for the Camera 

He does whatever the driver tells him to do. He knows the 

words of command, like a soldier. 

(See page 67) 



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I Afoot and Afloat in | 
Burma I 



By A. H. Williams 




I REVIEW AND HERALD PUBLISHING ASSOCIATION | 
I Takoma Park, Washington, D. C. | 

I PEEKSKILL, N. Y. SOUTH BEND, IND. I 

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PrintPd in V. 8. A. 






Copyright, 1922, by 
Review and Herald Publishing Association 



FEB -7*22 



i0)CI.A653836 



Contents 

An Introduction to Burma 9 

Where Aung Baw Lives and How He Works ... 15 

On the Road Through the Fields ' 27 

The Way Burmese Grow Paddj' 41 

Palm Trees for Every Purpose 57 

Making Good Elephants of Wild Ones 67 

Floating Logs Down the River 75 

The Way Your House Would Be Built 83 

Getting Food from the Rivers 93 

Buddhist Boys in the Monasteries 101 

How Young Burmans Make Merry 113 

By Canoe and Bullock Cart Through the Floods . . 123 

With Ma Dwa at the Schoolhouse 145 

Strange Burmese Ways of Helping the Sick 157 

Building a Bamboo House 167 

Canvassing on the River Launches 177 

Market Day 189 

Into the Shan Hills by Train and Caravan 203 

In Conclusion 215 




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Full-Page Illustrations 

Posing for the Camera 2 

Up the Beautiful Salwin River 6 

Burmese River Craft 8 

Water Buffaloes and a Native Plow 14 

A Burmese Footbridge 26 

Betel-Nut Chewing 32 

Planting Rice 40 

A Land of Elephants, Palms, and Pagodas 56 

Making Rope from Cocoanut Fiber 62 

Elephant Moving Saw Logs 66 

Log Raft on the Salwin River 74 

A Native Sawmill 82 

Burmese Natives at Home 88 

Bluffs Along the Salwin River 92 

Monks with Their Begging Bowls 100 

Burmese Festivity 112 

By Bullock Cart in Burma 122 

Launch and Landing Place, Kamamaung Mission . . 130 

Chapel, Kamamaung Mission 138 

Hulling Rice at Kamamaung Mission 144 

His First Day in School 148 

Ready for the Meeting 156 

Superstitious Burmese 162 

Burmese House Thatched with Leaves 166 

River Launches on the Salwin 176 

Cover of Our Burmese Paper 182 

Market Day in Burma 188 

Karen Woman Wearing Brass Ornaments 194 

A Common Sight in Burma 202 

Burmese Racing Boats 208 

Map of Burma 214 

Missionaries' Home, Kamamaung Mission 220 




Ahuja, Rangoon 



Burmese River Craft 

These boats vary in size from a small canoe to a large boat 

intended for carrying rice to the mills. 

(See page 124) 



AN INTRODUCTION TO BURMA 

Just across the Bay of Bengal in India, 
its next-door neighbor, is Burma. It is very 
different from India, not only as to the 
general appearance of the country itself, but 
also as regards the people, their manner of 
living, and the language spoken. That this 
should be so is really not hard to under- 
stand. 

Though joined by land to India in the 
north, Burma is separated from that country 
by mountain ranges which are difficult to 
cross. This has left the country shut in and 
isolated from earliest times. • The pages of 
Indian history are scarred by the records of 
Alexander the Great and other invaders, and 
the country and people have been influenced 
greatly by these various conquerors, yet 
Burma has been sheltered. 

In later times these same protecting 
mountains have stood in the way of more 
peaceful invaders, so that Burma is still 
without railway connection with the outside 



lo Afoot and Afloat Through Burma 

world. The only practical way of reach- 
ing it at present is by sea. 

But Burma's history is by no means a 
record of centuries of peace; for although 
there are also mountains between it and its 
eastern neighbors, China and Siam, these 
are in parts less forbidding than the barrier 
which separates it from India. 

So we find mention of expeditions against 
Siam which were very successful; but it is 
also recorded that the conflicts with the 
Chinese were less happy in their outcome, 
this big neighbor having exacted tribute 
from Burma on more than one occasion. 
Today, these past associations with the East 
are shown by similarities between the peo- 
ples of Burma and their neighbors across 
the Salwin. 

'Visitors from India, however, frequently 
did come by way of the sea; and it was 
in this way that the present-day religion of 
the people — Buddhism— was received. To- 
day there are but few believers in that faith 
in India, despite the fact that the founder 
of it was an Indian prince; but Burma is 
strongly Buddhist. 



An Introduction to Burma n 

By the same road, too, European mer- 
chants and others came, even as early as the 
time of Christ; and from them we learn a 
little of the conditions existing in Burma in 
the olden days. 

There is abundant evidence that the peo- 
ple within Burma itself, whoever they may 
have been and wherever they may have 
come from (both of which facts are appar- 
ently hard to find out exactly) , seemed un- 
able to live at peace among themselves. So 
today, scattered about here and there over 
the country, are to be found the ruins of 
ancient capitals, reminders of bygone days 
of splendor, and mute witnesses of many a 
fierce struggle between sections and tribes. 

It seems to have been a custom with 
some of these warring bands to transport 
their vanquished foes to strange parts of the 
country; or perhaps some of the marauders 
settled in new parts, abandoning their old 
homes; for at the present time we find the 
peoples and languages of the different tribes 
scattered and mixed all over the country. 
Thus the Burmese, who of themselves in- 
clude the remnants of formerly separate king- 



12 Afoot and Afloat Through Burma 

doms; the Karens, with their differing dia- 
lects; the Talaings, Taungthus, Shans, Chins, 
Kachins, and what-not else, are to be found 
here and there, one in with the other. As 
may well be imagined, this condition of af- 
fairs by no means simplifies the task of the 
missionary, who, in his endeavor to uplift 
the people, seeks to acquaint himself thor- 
oughly with their speech and customs. In- 
cidentally it means that the descriptions given 
in these pages, of people and things as they 
are in one part of the country, do not neces- 
sarily apply to all other parts of the same 
land. 

The people of Burma are principally 
farmers, and large towns are few and far 
between. Such as there are show the foreign 
impress in an ever-increasing degree. Ran- 
goon, the capital city, seems to provide lodg- 
ment for people from nearly every nation 
under the sun; which is not surprising when 
one considers the wealth of the country, and 
the general willingness of the Burman to 
employ another to do the hard work. 

In the first place, the mighty Irrawaddy, 
with its hundreds of miles of navigable wa- 



An Introduction to Burma 13 

ters, reaching right up through the very cen- 
ter of the country, secured for Rangoon its 
pre-eminence; then the railway crowned the 
natural advantages of the capital by focus- 
ing on it all other routes of Burma's trade; 
and later a well-developed harbor has invited 
the shipping of the world to come and re- 
ceive the treasures of the province; and the 
combination of these influences has resulted 
in the city's being a cosmopolitan place. 

It seems but natural, then, that in endeav- 
oring to convey a little idea of what the real 
people of Burma are like, one should turn 
his attention almost entirely to the village 
people rather than to those in the towns. 

This little book makes no particular pre- 
tense of treating Burma as a whole, but ra- 
ther is it just a small collection of stories 
— odds and ends that I have noticed in my 
varied wanderings. An endeavor has been 
made to write them in a style and language 
suited to Juniors. If this book serves to 
arouse or increase the interest of any in this 
pleasant land, its purpose will have been 
accomplished. 



WHERE AUNG BAW LIVES AND 
HOW HE WORKS 

Plowing Under Water — Buffaloes for Horses — A 
House Tied in a Tree — A Bamboo Water Pail 

Here comes Aung Baw, driving a pair 
of oxen before him and carrying his plow 
on his shoulder. It looks more like a rough, 
bent piece of wood, pointed at one end, than 
a plow; but he has not enough money to buy 
a better one, and this one serves his purpose. 
The end of the wood is shod with an iron 
plow point, which is always kept sharp. 
Aung Baw must be on his way to his field 
to get the ground ready for transplanting the 
rice; so we will follow him and see how he 
works. 

Notice the oxen. They are different from 
those seen in other parts of the world. Do 
you see that hump on their backs, just over 
the shoulders? All Indian cattle have that, 
and it is peculiar to them. 

Aung Baw has the two animals already 
yoked together, and the yoke lies on their 



i6 Afoot and Afloat Through Burma 

necks, just in front of the hump. When 
they begin their work and are pulling at the 
plow, this hump serves as a strong pad 
against which they can push. Each ox has 
a rope passed through from one side of his 
nose to the other, and the reins are tied to 
this nose rope, instead of to a bit, as is done 
with a horse. 

Here we are at Aung Baw's field. How 
can he tell where his field begins or ends, 
as there are no fences or hedges, and no 
boundary stones either? Everywhere the 
land is flat, and is divided into odd-shaped 
sections with only very low ridges of earth 
between them; and even these are broken 
down in many places, where the carts have 
been driven over them during the past dry 
season. 

Aung Baw farms several of these little 
pieces of ground, and somehow he knows 
just which are his. He does not own the 
land, but rents it, paying his rent every har- 
vest time by giving the owner a certain 
number of baskets of rice for each acre. 
The oxen too have probably been hired for 
the plowing. 



Where Aung Baw Lives 17 

How can he plow such muddy soil? 
Well, in Lower Burma they always wait 
until the ground is soft with the early rains 
before they start to work it. Sometimes you 
might see a man plowing a field which looks 
like nothing else than a big puddle. Of 
course, farmers in America would not think 
this the best way to do the work; but the 
soil here is very rich, and with even this 
scant attention, it yields a good crop; so the 
people are satisfied. 

Occasionally all the breaking up the 
ground gets is done by sending a boy out to 
drive the oxen or the buffaloes up and down 
the field; and the cattle tramp through the 
soft mud, and so break the surface in readi- 
ness for the rice shoots. 

Buffaloes are not such fierce fellows as 
used to roam about in America, but are 
quite tame, although most of them seem 
much afraid of white people. When they 
are startled they might do some harm, for 
they are very heavy and strong, and have 
long horns. In the villages, little boys and 
girls four or five years old drive them along 
or ride on their backs. 



1 8 Afoot and Afloat Through Burma 

These Indian water buffaloes usually 
have a black or dark-gray hide. They like 
nothing so much as lying in a pond, their 
huge bodies completely covered, and just the 




Aung Baw and His Famil}' 

tip of their noses poking up above the water. 
In the hot weather they spend much of their 
time in this way; and if there is not enough 
water for them to lie in, then the next best 
thing they seem to like is to roll in the mud. 
Often they are completely covered with 
brown, slimy mud, but they look perfectly 
contented. 



Where Aung Baw Lives 19 

Buffalo milk is very rich in cream, and 
quite a number of the cows are kept for the 
good milk they give. The buffalo calves are 
ugly little fellows, and go tumbling along 
after their mother, making a great deal of 
noise. 

Aung Baw's crude plowing easily breaks 
the soft earth, but does not go very deep. 
It is a good thing that he is barefooted, or 
he would have a hard task cleaning the mud 
off after the day's work is over. A little 
water will soon wash his feet and legs clean 
when he gets home in the evening. 

After he has finished his plowing, Aung 
Baw levels the ground again by hitching 
some sort of rough wooden roller to the oxen, 
which drag it up and down the fields. This 
is very necessary, as the rain must be kept 
from draining away, for rice grows best 
when standing in water. 

Where the land is especially low lying, 
and is flooded several feet deep during the 
rains, the rice is transplanted late in the 
season, after the water has begun to go down. 
But in most places the work is done while 
the rains are still falling, the extra water 



20 Afoot and Afloat Through Burma 

being drained away by little ditches dug 
for that purpose. 

It will yet be some days before Aung 
Baw will put in his rice plants. He is very 




A Karen Village 

fortunate in that his field is quite near his 
house. Many of these village people farm 
land miles from their homes; so during the 
rice season they build a rough shanty near 
the field, where the men and boys can stay 
till the plowing and planting are finished. 
Perhaps after that the boys will take turns 
in staying there till the crop is ready to 



Where Aung Baw Lives 21 

harvest, w^hen all must again busy themselves 
in gathering in the grain. 

Aung Baw's house is in a small village 
called Kaw-ma-ra, which means " in front 
of the hill." Over there about a mile away, 
you can see the hill rising abruptly from the 
fields. Look carefully, and you will see a 
pagoda upon the top. One wonders how the 
men ever carried up the materials to build 
it; but there it is, just like thousands of others 
in Burma. It reminds us of the Bible pas- 
sage about the heathen places of worship 
being on every high hill and under every 
green tree. 

There are many little villages like Kaw- 
ma-ra scattered about over this country. 
Wherever you see a clump of trees, except, 
perhaps, close to the foot of the hills, you 
may be sure there is a village, though pos- 
sibly it may have only eight or ten houses. 
In between are the fields, quite bare of trees. 
During the rains they are a beautiful sea of 
green, with the flourishing rice crops ; in the 
dry weather, just a bare brown stretch, the 
low ridges between the little plots being all 
there is to break the monotony. 



22 Afoot and Afloat Through Burma 

Here and there a bullock cart may be 
seen, perhaps laden with merrymakers going 
to a feast. As it bumps along over the fields, 
it raises a cloud of dust, for there are no 
regular roads here, and they do not seem 
to need them in this land of the simple life. 

Aung Baw has been settled in this place 
for several years, so his house is inclosed in 
a high bamboo hedge, so thick that one can 
hardly see the building from the outside. 
The gateway is a narrow gap in the hedge, 
which can be closed by just sliding some 
thin bamboos through two gateposts, which 
have holes in them for the purpose. 

In these villages the people do not seem 
to fear that any one will interfere much with 
their property. I once saw what will seem 
to you like a very strange sight. As I was 
walking over the fields, I noticed a number 
of planks tied high up in the fork of a tree. 
Evidently some man had had to leave his 
home for a time, so had pulled it down; and 
to keep the materials together, he had tied 
them up in the tree. There the wood was, 
with nobody at all to watch it, a mile or 
more from any village or other house, but 



Where Aung Baw Lives 23 

apparently quite safe. Just fancy pulling 
your house down when you wanted to go 
away, and then leaving the wood tied up in 
a tree for months until you came back! Of 
course, their houses are often poor little 
structures, that do not require much time 
to build. 

Inside Aung Baw's hedge you can see 
the cocoanut palms and banana plants he has 
growing. In these parts the villagers plant 
a few cocoanuts as soon as they settle in a 
place; so, in a way, one can tell by the palms 
if a village is old, or only recently built. 
These of Aung Baw's must be about twenty 
years old, as they have been bearing nuts for 
some time. The banana plants grow much 
more quickly, and once a plant has borne a 
bunch of fruit, it is cut down, five or six 
others springing up to take its place. These 
bear fruit better if they are separated and 
transplanted; but if left alone, they make 
quite a thick clump of plants. 

Like most houses in this part, Aung Baw's 
is built of wood and high up on posts, the 
floor being six or seven feet above the 
ground. This makes a place underneath for 



24 Afoot and Afloat Through Burma 

the rice mill and the hand loom, as well as 
for the ducks. If chickens are kept, they 
usually roost up in the bamboo and other 
trees. Often the big basket for storing the 
household supply of rice and cocoanuts is 
under the house, too; but Aung Baw has 
built himself quite a strong house, and has 
his storeroom upstairs. The well is just a 
square hole, perhaps twenty feet deep, with 
the edge lined with heavy logs, sunken 
level with the ground, to prevent any caving 
in around the top. 

They have a clever arrangement for draw- 
ing the water. These village people do not 
have much money, and cannot afiford to 
buy iron pails and ropes, so the wonderful 
bamboo is brought into use. 

While many bamboos are slender, others 
grow to be seven or eight inches thick and 
are hollow. About every fifteen inches along 
the length, the bamboo has a notch showing 
on the outside; and at these points it is 
solid right through. So by cutting across 
the bamboo just below two notches, a nice 
pail about six inches across and twelve 
inches deep, inside, is made. Aung Baw 



Where Aung Baw Lives 25 

has sawed off a piece of one of these large 
bamboos, and there is his pail all ready for 
use! 

Across the mouth of the pail is a string of 
cocoanut fiber. Now it is lowered into the 
well. For this purpose a long, thin bamboo, 
perhaps less than one inch thick, is chosen; 
and you will see that all the side branches 
have been carefully trimmed off, except 
about two inches of one right at the thick 
end. This makes a very fine natural hook 
on which the pail is swung; and away it goes 
down into the well. If you should try to 
fill the pail, you would probably let it slip 
off the hook; but then, you have not had 
so much practice as Aung Baw and his 
people. 



ON THE ROAD THROUGH THE 
FIELDS 

A Half-Mile Footbridge — Betel-Nut Chewing — The 
Foolish Taungthu — Mud Kettles 

Come along, let us go right through 
Myaingalay village, climb the stile at the 
beginning of the village street, and on past 
the headman's house. The Burmese call the 
headman the thugyi, or " big person," for 
he has a good deal of authority in the com- 
munity. At the monastery the road winds 
somewhat. Over on the left there is a wide 
stretch of rice fields, with the cocoanut palms 
of another village in the background. 

Look at that bridge; it must be nearly 
half a mile long. The village people have 
all worked together to build it, so as to 
provide a footpath for everybody during the 
rainy season ; and the government has helped 
by allowing them to cut the trees they needed, 
without paying any tax. When we come to 
talk about the sawyers, I will tell you more 
about that tax. 



28 Afoot and Afloat Through Burma 

This village on the other side of the 
monastery looks different, because the peo- 
ple at one end are Taungthus and Talaings, 
and at the other end they are mostly Pwo 
Karens. These two tribes build their houses 
dififerently. 

The houses that we first saw were mostly 
built quite low down, with the floor in the 
front part just about eighteen inches above 
the ground, while the back part of the house, 
which is the bedroom, is a good deal higher 
and is reached by climbing a few steps. This 
is the regular Burmese style. But the Karen 
houses are generally high up, with the whole 
floor six or seven feet from the ground, like 
Aung Baw's. 

Here we are at the little stream crossed 
by a village bridge. Two or three tree trunks 
have been laid down, one after the other, 
and supported by rough posts driven into the 
bed of the stream. This bridge has a hand- 
rail, although many of the longer ones do 
not have any railing at all. 

Now we are out on the government cart 
road. The villagers are used to walking in 
their bare feet, and so do not mind a little 



Through the Fields 29 

mud. The little footpath through the wood 
at this end is not very well kept up, except 
that the brushwood is not allowed to over- 
grow it. Burma does not have very good 
roads. After about a mile this one seems 
to run right into the river. That is because 
it was made so that the people might reach 
the ferrying place from the town on the 
other side of the Salwin. 

Down at the water's edge we can sit in 
the little tea shop. It is roughly built, made 
of bamboo, with a roof of cocoanut leaves. 
There is not much use of making it better, 
for the river rises during the rainy season 
and sweeps it away. So a new house is built 
every year. 

While we are waiting for the canoe, we 
can watch the people as they go by. Here 
comes an old Karen. His loongyee, or shirt, 
is tucked up, his sturdy thighs are bare, so 
that you can see the tattoo marks. In Burma 
it is the general custom for the men to be 
tattooed from the waist down to the knees. 
The pattern is so close that the whole skin 
looks blue. When a young man is being 
tattooed, he is given something to drink 



30 Afoot and Afloat Through Burma 

which deadens the pain, for it is a most 
painful process. Some of the tribes in 
Burma tattoo the faces of all the women. 
They say they do this because the women 
are so good-looking, and they don't want the 
neighboring tribes to steal their women. 

The old man has the usual Karen bag 
slung over his shoulder. It looks like a 
schoolboy's bag. These bags are very con- 
venient for carrying the odds and ends bought 
at the market. The villagers carry their betel 
boxes and tobacco pipes in them, too. 

Over his head he has a paper umbrella, 
which is really very good indeed. The paper 
has been treated with a certain oil, and keeps 
out the rain quite well. In some parts of 
Burma they make very dainty parasols, the 
paper being painted in pretty designs, and 
the other parts finished off neatly. 

As soon as he sits down, the old Karen 
brings out his betel box. It is made of 
lacquer ware; that is, of bamboo strips 
plaited closely together into the required 
shape. This is plastered over to fill up" all 
the cracks, varnished, and colored in neat 
designs. 



Through the Fields 31 

The betel, or areca, nut grows in bunches 
on a tall palm. When the outer skin is 
peeled off, it looks like a nutmeg. It is 
pared into thin slices with a pair of nippers, 
and these parings are placed on a small 
green leaf, together with some lime and to- 
bacco and spices. Then it is all folded up 
and popped into the mouth and chewed. 

Betel-nut chewing makes their mouths 
very unsightly, staining them a nasty red, 
and turning the teeth black. It also en- 
courages the very dirty habit of spitting. 
That old woman's mouth looks disgraceful. 
One old stump of a tooth and blackened 
gums are all that she has in place of the 
thirty-two pearly white teeth. 

These people ofifer the betel nut to their 
friends just to show their hospitality, much 
as some tobacco smokers offer cigarettes and 
cigars to each other. 

Here is a Taungthu. Burmese folks look 
down on this tribe, and think them very 
ignorant. There is a story in a schoolbook 
which shows how foolish a Taungthu can be. 
The story says one of them was sitting in his 
boat washing a tray, when it slipped from 




Betel-Nut Chewing — a Native Habit 

One old stump of a tooth and blackened guiiis are all that she 
has in place of thirty-two pearly white teeth. 



Through the Fields 33 

his hands and sank in the river. The man 
dived for it, but could not find it. Again 
and again he tried. Being still very anxious 
to get it, he cdt a notch on the side of his 
boat to show where the tray had slipped 
over; and then, ever after that, when he was 
in his boat and had the time, he would dive 
in opposite the notch, no matter where the 
boat was. The Burmese say that he thought 
to find the tray at the bottom of the river in 
that place. 

Sitting on the floor of the tea house we 
can chat with the keeper. He doesn't worry 
at all, even though we do not buy anything. 
He knows that we will ask for what we want. 
See the kettle made of baked mud. The 
village folks know how to make almost any 
object out of just such simple things as mud! 

The ferry is a long time coming, so we 
shout across the river, '' Hai, kadoe! " Here 
he comes with his canoe. We'll have to be 
careful going down the bank, for the muddy 
steps are only roughly made, and very 
slippery. 

Look out as you step into the canoe, or 
you will topple over. I did one day, for the 



34 Afoot and Afloat Through Burma 

boat started to wabble as soon as I stepped 
into it, and over I went into the water! 
There are a number of the paddles lying 
ready, one for you to use to help the ferry- 
man across. Some one would better bail the 
water out of this canoe, else our boots will 
get full. Here is the dipper, made out of 
bamboo. 

When we reach the other side, the ferry- 
man collects his fares of one anna apiece. 
(One anna equals two cents.) The fare 
varies according to the width of the river, 
for in some places where the stream is a 
narrow one, the fare is only a quarter of an 
anna. 

We take the road up past the blacksmiths' 
quarter. It is the usual thing in Burmese 
towns for the people of the same trade to 
live close together. Part of the town is 
called after the particular trade followed 
there. There is the umbrella quarter, black- 
smith quarter, and so on. These blacksmiths 
are busy making dahs, which are the long 
knives the Burmese make so much use of. 
When we see some men building a house, 
we shall know how useful these dahs are. 



Through the Fields 35 

Suppose we stop at the post office to see if 
there are any letters for us. In our village 
we have only one delivery a week, so our 
letters stay here in the post office until our 
day comes round, or we call for them. 

Now we must hurry, for it is quite a long 
walk to Aung Baw's house. 

The first time I went this way I had an 
interesting time finding my way around. I 
had been asked to go and visit a man who 
lives a mile or so farther on than Aung 
Baw, but nobody seemed just sure of the 
way to get there. I decided to ask the post- 
master as to when the mail runner would be 
going out that way, so that I might go with 
him and thus find my friend. When I was 
walking through the town to the post office, 
I happened to meet a man with whom I had 
made friends the day before, and as every- 
body does in these parts, he greeted me with 
the question, " Beh thwa m'lay, saya? " 
(Where are you going?) 

I told him as best I could; and then he 
asked if I knew the way. I had to confess 
that I did not. To my great surprise and 
relief he told me the man I was seeking was 



36 Afoot and Afloat Through Burma 

his uncle, and that if I would come over to 
his house, I should find a man there who 
was going out to that very village that morn- 
ing, and I could go with him. Of course, 
I needed no second invitation. It might have 
been some days before the postman would 
have been going, and he might not have been 
sure of my friend's house. 

Many times as I have thought over this 
incident, it has seemed to me to be like the 
way the two disciples found the upper room 
to which Jesus had sent them, to prepare it 
for the last supper; for when they came to 
the city, they met a man carrying a pitcher 
of water, who took them to the very house 
to which the Master had told them to go. 
And so this man, whom I had never before 
seen, took me just where I wanted to go; and 
as this story proceeds, you will surely agree 
that without a guide like that, I should have 
had a most difficult time to find the way to 
the house of my friend. 

We go out past the burying ground. That 
shelter over there is for the convenience of 
funeral parties, for often they invite a num- 
ber of monks to the burying, and give them 



Through the Fields 37 

presents. The monks sit on the floor of this 
place, while the gifts are being offered. 

Out through the rice fields we go, through 
the mud and water, following the ridges as 
best we can. We slide and slop along 
through the mud, and when we reach the 
village we find that the path is not much 
better; for under the overhanging bamboos 
it does not get a chance to dry, from the 
beginning of the rains to the end. 

It is now beginning to rain quite heavily, 
so if you like we will just step into this 
house and take shelter till the worst is over. 
The people are desirous that we come in for 
a rest and sit down and make ourselves at 
home. Their houses generally are poor and 
often not very clean, but their friendliness 
makes up for everything else. Somewhere in 
this village I met a poor old blind man, who 
was made very happy by the gospel story of 
the new earth where the blind shall have 
their sight restored. 

This is the long bridge I told you we 
should have to cross. It is about two thirds 
of a mile long. It is always marshy here, so 
even in the dry season we should have to go 



38 Afoot and Afloat Through Burma 

some miles around if the bridge were not 
provided. Walk straight ahead, and you will 
soon get used to it. Most of the way there 
is a good stout plank about eight inches wide. 

Some one is coming from the other end, 
so we will wait here at the trestle upon 
which the planks rest. The man will easily 
pass us, even though he is carrying two big 
baskets slung on a pole. 

Near the end of the bridge we shall have 
to be very careful. A few of the planks have 
evidently given way, and somebody has re- 
placed them with stout bamboos ; but they are 
round and slippery. We'll put our feet on 
sideways and walk slowly, until we are over. 
In some places whole bridges are like that. 

Just before reaching Aung Baw's, we find 
ourselves right below a pagoda which is 
perched up on the summit of a hill. In the 
dry season there is a festival there. At that 
time some thousands of people visit it. They 
dance in groups on these very fields. 

One time I saw another interesting thing 
at this place. Men were casting a great bell 
for use on some religious building. They 
had made the mold in the ground, and had 



Through the Fields 39 

built a furnace near by, so that they could 
melt the brass and run it straight into the 
mold without difficulty. 

On the pagoda there are large brass bells 
which have been cast in this crude way. It 
may be that a large number of people will 
club together and each give so much weight 
of metal for such a purpose, as the chil- 
dren of Israel did for the making of the 
golden calf at the foot of Mt. Sinai; and 
then all are supposed to share in the merit 
which comes from doing this pious act. 

After our long and muddy walk, Aung 
Baw's hedge looks quite cheerful; and now 
that we can see it, it will not be long until 
we are comfortably settled in his house for 
the night. 



THE WAY BURMESE GROW PADDY 

Making Thanaka — Names of Burmese Letters — In a 
Burmese School — Planting and Guarding Rice Fields 

" Tek like bah, say a'' is the way Aung 
Baw's folks tell us to climb to the veranda 
of their house. Up the bamboo ladder we 
go, and settle ourselves on the floor, scaring 
away the dog. He walks off down the lad- 
der just as easily as can be. These village 
dogs are not very bold, and can do little but 
bark, and that generally from a safe distance. 
While our friends are busy preparing us 
something to eat, we can look around. 

Here is a crossbow, quite a heavy afifair 
in its way. It is stretched by turning a 
handle, so that it can be pulled very tight 
indeed; and then to release the arrow, a little 
trigger is pulled, very much like that of a 
gun. The Burmese use these very skilfully. 
With a smaller crossbow they shoot mud 
balls that have been baked hard in the sun. 
In place of a thong or string, these bows have 
slender bamboo strips. In just the right 



42 Afoot and Afloat Through Burma 

place a small square patch is woven, on 
which the mud ball is held. 

I tried to shoot with one of these bows 
one time, but succeeded only in hitting my 
own thumb nail. The village boys are very 
clever in their use, and can hit targets at a 
good distance. 

That thing over in the corner which looks 
like a toy water wheel is what Aung Baw's 
wife and daughters use when spinning thread. 
The loom is downstairs, and perhaps later 
on we shall see some of the sheets that have 
been woven on it. Nowadays, with foreign 
cotton goods so cheap, there is not so much 
weaving done in the villages as there used 
to be. 

Up in the rafters you can see the big 
bamboo fish trap, four or five feet long, and 
about eighteen inches across at one end, the 
other tapering to a point. Sometime we may 
see one of these in use. 

That flat, round stone, about a foot across, 
is where the women grind the face paste, or 
thanaka. A small piece of sandalwood is 
taken, and after the surface of the stone has 
been wet with water, the wood is rubbed on 



The Way Burmese Grow Paddy 43 

it, so that gradually a fine paste is made. 
This has something of the fragrance of the 
sandalwood, and is quite soothing to the 
skin when prickly heat bothers. Burmese 
ladies smear their faces with it. This is 
.their face powder. They usually have a 
small supply of it with them as they travel. 
Just before reaching their destination, they 
will use it for beauty purposes. 

On the outer veranda are the waterpots. 
Frequently people keep two or three right 
on the roadside, so that passers-by may 
quench their thirst. The dipper is made 
from a cocoanut shell, the wooden handle 
being passed through from one side to the 
other. 

This is called in Burmese a yay hmote; 
and one of the letters in the Burmese al- 
phabet is shaped like it. The Burmese 
schoolboys call it the dah yay hmote. Nearly 
all their letters have names like that, one 
being called " horse-bridle z; " another, 
" crooked breasted d; " while still another is 
called " p with a hat." 

The vowels also have names which make 
it easy to remember what they look like. 



44 Afoot and Afloat Through Burma 

One is called " the big circle placed on," 
which is the same as our letter " e; " it con- 
sists of a circle written on top of the letter 
after which it has to be sounded. 



Burmese Letters and Their 
Peculiar Names 

2) Water-dipper " D " 

^ Horse bridle " Z " 

I Crooked breasted " D " 

G " P " with a hat 

^y2 The big circle placed on (the 
^^^ letter ''K") 



When the Burmese boys are learning to 
read, they have to pronounce each consonant 
with every vowel in turn, and in this way go 
through all the thirty-two consonants they 
have. In school we could hear thirty or 
more lusty lungs crying out: 



The Way Burmese Grow Paddy 45 

" Kah gyee, eh .... ka 
Kah gyee, eh, chah .... kah (drawn out 

a little long) 
Kah gyee, eh, long gyee tin . . . . ke 
Kah gyee, eh, long gyee tin san kat .... 

kee," 

and so on, kah gyee being their letter " k; " 
the eh just a sound thrown in to complete 
the rhythm of the lesson; then the name 
of the vowel, if there is one; and last of 
all, the sound of the consonant with the 
vowel joined on. 

Here comes the bowl of steaming rice, 
with a dish of eggs, for supper. This is dif- 
ferent from the kind you generally see at 
home, but the taste is much the same. It 
has a slightly reddish tint. Aung Baw will 
not eat with us, because he would regard 
that as disrespectful on his part. 

There is no caste in Burma as there is 
in many parts of India. There, many people 
refuse to eat with others who are not of the 
same caste, that is, who belong to a different 
class of people. In India, should the host 
ofifer us milk to drink, it would not be 
proper to hand the cups back after drinking. 



46 Afoot and Afloat Through Burma 

Instead we are to throw them out of the 
window. It would be defiling for the host 
to touch cups used by those outside his caste. 
Inasmuch as, the cups are plain earthenware, 
there is usually no great loss in throwing 
them away. 

After supper we have a Bible reading 
with the household. Aung Baw reads Pwo 
Karen, but not Burmese, although he can 
understand some of the latter language. He 
will read in his language, and then we will 
read the same verses in Burmese, and after- 
ward talk over the subject. All together, we 
crouch down on the floor, for the lamp is 
just a rough little tin affair with a tiny round 
wick, and having no chimney, it smokes and 
flickers in the breeze. 

"Early to bed, early to rise;" that is 
the rule here. Very soon we make ourselves 
comfortable for the night on the nice, cool 
veranda. In this warm country all we need 
is two hand-woven bed covers. 

The ladder is drawn up so that the vil- 
lage dogs cannot annoy us. But mosquitoes 
hum around, so we are glad for the mos- 
quito curtains in our knapsacks. 



The Way Burmese Grow Paddy 47 

Over in the hedge the fireflies are like so 
many flashing diamonds. Perhaps early in 
the morning we may hear a deer barking 
over at the foot of the hill. It is delightfully 
still and quiet. We shall have a good night's 
rest, when we get used to sleeping on the 
board floor. 

With the first streaks of dawn all are 
awake and up. A wash at the well, and all 
are ready for another bowl of rice; and then 
away to the fields to watch the work. 

About a month ago Aung Baw sowed his 
rice seed in what is often called the nursery, 
a field where the soil is extra good, and there 
is not too much water. He had soaked the 
seed in water for two days before sowing, so 
it soon sprang up; and by now it has reached 
a height of about a foot. Yesterday he 
pulled up the young plants, and trimmed the 
tops ofif; and today he and his wife and 
daughters are going to replant them. 

The soil in the fields is now just so much 
soft mud, which is just right. Each one 
takes a short, light stick in hand. At the 
farther end of these sticks there is a fork 
where a small branch leaves the main stem. 



48 Afoot and Afloat Through Burma 

Three or four of the rice plants are put in 
this, and the stick poked down into the mud, 
and then pulled out again, leaving the plants 




© U. & U., N. Y. 



An Oriental Rice Farm 



Stuck fast in the ground. With a bunch of 
rice plants in the left hand, and the stick in 
the right, the workers go along rapidly, put- 
ting in a tuft every ten or twelve inches in 
regular rows. 



The Way Burmese Grow Paddy 49 

When the rice is well settled after the 
transplanting, the fields make a very pretty 
sight indeed, with the wide stretches of un- 
broken green. I shall never forget how beau- 
tiful the valley of the Yonzalin River ap- 
peared, near the town of Papun, when we 
reached it after a long and somewhat trying 
journey. On either hand the hillsides rose, 
terraced after years of patient labor, now all 
clad in brilliant green, while down between, 
the stream rushed by, just like a thread of 
silver. 

It will take three to five months before 
the rice will be ready to harvest, the time 
depending on the kind of seed and the time 
of year when it is planted. In the mean- 
time the men will busy themselves with fish- 
ing and other such work, apart from the 
general watching of their fields. They do not 
worry much about keeping the weeds cleared 
away, for the water standing in the fields 
does that. The ridges around each little 
plot must be kept in order, though, else the 
water might drain away and the crop suffer. 

After the ears of rice are formed, and 
while they are filling, the fields must be 



5o Afoot and Afloat Through Burma 

watched continuously, or the birds will 
steal a good deal of grain. Here and there 
a small shelter is roughly built, from which 
ropes are stretched out in all directions over 
the rice. A boy sitting in the shelter every 
now and then pulls the ropes. On the ropes 
hang bamboo clappers or bits of rag, and 
the noise and movement scares the birds 
away. 

At night there is not much danger, for 
the birds are asleep and the cattle safely 
in their pens, and the mangy-looking dog, 
which sleeps on the ground, will scare the 
deer away with his barking, should they 
come along for a feed of rice. The crows 
and other birds come early in the morning, 
so somebody must sleep out in the fields to 
be ready to watch as soon as it is light. 
During the heat of the day, too, there is not 
much trouble, so the watchers have what is 
for them a very happy time — they can spend 
most of their hours just dozing. 

Parrots, too, are very destructive to the 
rice crops, for they seem to delight in pick- 
ing a little here and a little there, thus spoil- 
ing a great deal more than they actually eat, 



The Way Burmese Grow Paddy 51 

and they come in big flocks, too. The little 
bows and hard mud balls come in very nicely 
for this work of watching the fields, for the 
guards can sit quietly in their shelters and 
scare the birds a long way ofif. 

When the time comes for the paddy to be 
reaped, all the family must get to work and 
gather in the crop. Many farmers hire 
Indian coolies to do most of the reaping for 
them, as they much prefer to watch others 
do such back-breaking work. 

Out they go with their little sickles, the 
girls with their big palm-leaf hats on and 
their cheeks protected by a cloth, so that they 
do not get sunburned. It will be noticed 
that they cut so as to leave quite a length of 
rice stalk in the ground. After the crop 
has been entirely cleared away, this stubble is 
fired, and the ashes form about the only 
fertilizer the soil ever gets, unless the river 
happens to overflow and leave a fresh layer 
of mud on the surface. 

The rice is generally threshed out in the 
fields, before being carted away. A suitable 
spot is cleared and leveled off; or maybe 
there is a general village threshing floor 



52 Afoot and Afloat Through Burma 

which all use in turn. On this the stalks of 
paddy are heaped high in a circle. Then the 
oxen or buffaloes are driven slowly round 
and round, till the ears have all been trod- 
den out. 

A platform about ten feet high is built. 
Squatting on this, a man takes the baskets of 
threshed rice which are passed up to him by 
another standing on a platform halfway up, 
and pours it out, so that the wind may carry 
off the chaff and dust, while the grain falls 
to the ground below. 

Some of the rice must be stored for the 
next year. Some must be kept as seed. The 
balance is sent off to the town to be sold to 
the agents of the rice mills or other mer- 
chants, the sale of which brings in practically 
the only money many a family sees for the 
whole year. Sometimes an advance is made 
on the crop by a rice merchant. In that 
case the crop must be sold to him, regardless 
of the price that others would pay. 

The Burmese sometimes earn a little cash 
by keeping fowls. Men, with great baskets 
slung on poles carried over the shoulder, 
make regular trips through the country. 



The Way Burmese Grow Paddy 53 

buying the hens and chickens and eggs. 
They sell them in the larger towns. Some, 
too, may have an orchard which brings in 
some money. With the boys and girls going 
to school in town, some ready money must 
be on hand to pay their fees and other ex- 
penses. 

With the threshing finished, the straw is 
collected to be used as cattle feed. A plat- 
form about a foot high may be built, with a 
pole some ten or more feet long placed 
upright in the middle; the straw will be 
roughly piled on the platform and the top 
finished off into a loose thatch. Throughout 
the year the cattle are allowed to eat at the 
bottom of this stack, which slowly slides 
down the central pole, till all has been used. 

If we could follow the rice on its journey 
after the farmers have sold it, we should find 
it going by boat or train down to the big 
seaports, where great rice mills line the 
river; from these, during the busy season, 
there flows a constant stream of rice to all 
parts of the world. Day and night the work 
goes on, now that electric lights turn night 
into day. 



54 Afoot and Afloat Through Burma 

After the paddy has been measured in the 
mill, it is bought at so much a hundred bas- 
kets, this being a standard measure. Next 
it is cleaned and then milled, to remove the 
husk. Finally it is sewed up in sacks. All 
is bustle and business around the mills. Out 
in the river are rov^s and rows of boats in 
which the paddy has come, and long lines of 
coolies are working steadily unloading the 
grain, and then reloading the filled sacks. 
The water for some distance round is brown 
with floating husks. Some of this is used 
as fuel for the working of the machinery. 
Even the dust which is swept up inside is 
used as pig feed. 

Rice forms by far the greater part of the 
exports of Burma, perhaps two thirds of the 
total. In earlier days the river in Rangoon 
was filled with sailing ships waiting for their 
annual cargoes of rice, afterward setting out 
on their long journeys to dififerent parts of 
the globe. It used to take four or five 
months, and sometimes even longer, to reach 
England from Burma by sailing ship. Now 
large, ocean-going steamers have replaced the 
old styles of boat. 



The Way Burmese Grow Paddy 5^ 

In Upper Burma a good deal of cotton 
is now grown. Different fibers for rope 
making and like purposes are also cultivated. 
Up in the Shan Hills one sees potatoes, and 
the fields here are worked in a very peculiar 
way. After the plowing has been completed, 
the loose soil on the surface is raked up into 
little heaps, one every foot or so across the 
field. In these heaps are mixed leaves, grass, 
or stable waste. Afterward each one is set 
afire, the ash remaining to enrich the soil. 

In some of the more out-of-the-way parts 
of the country the people do not steadily 
farm the same land year after year, but they 
wander around, burning and clearing a small 
patch of forest here and there, often on a 
steep hillside, and after a few crops have 
been taken off, leave it for a new place. 

Rubber is now being grown in Lower 
Burma, the heavy rainfall there being suited 
to this tree; but much of this work is in the 
hands of large companies, which work per- 
haps thousands of acres; so we do not find 
the Burmese interesting themselves in it to 
any great extent. 




o 



" ^ 8 

— i a! 03 



PALM TREES FOR EVERY PURPOSE 

Chauk-chaw Candy — Ice Fruit and Toddy Palm — 
Travelers' Palm, with Its Cool Drink 

You remember the cocoanut palms 
around Aung Baw's house? The nuts as 
they grow on these palms look very large, 
for outside of what is usually called the shell 
there is a coarse, fibrous husk, which is about 
two inches thick all round. The valuable 
coir fiber, from which ropes and matting 
are made, is obtained from this husk. 

If a nut is picked before it is fully 
formed, it is found to be soft and jelly-like 
inside, and filled with a sweetish water which 
makes a very pleasant drink on a hot day. 
But as the nuts grow older, the meat be- 
comes firmer, and the water dries up until 
it is all gone. In its place there grows up 
inside what is called the flower. This is 
really the new plant which is slowly being 
formed. 

When a native wants to plant some cocoa- 
nuts, he takes a number of nuts, with the 



^8 Afoot and Afloat Through Burma 

outer husk on, just as they are picked from 
the palm. He leaves these standing in a 
corner of his house for several weeks. In 
due time the leaves begin to sprout out of 
the top, and when these have reached the 
height of one foot, or perhaps two feet, the 
nuts are put in the ground, half buried, and 
they take root. 

It takes from seven to twelve years for a 
new palm to bear its first crop of nuts, some 
varieties being much slower than others. 
From that time on there is a steady supply 
for many years. All goes well, without any 
further trouble of cultivation, unless per- 
chance some pest, as for instance a certain 
form of beetle, attacks the palm, in which 
case there is every danger that the whole 
crown of the tree will drop ofif, and the 
palm die. 

Cocoanuts grow to best advantage where 
there is plenty of rain, so one often sees them 
fringing the seacoast in tropical countries; 
but farther inland, say at a place like Meik- 
tila, where we have our school, they are not 
commonly seen. It is sometimes said that salt 
water is necessary -for their growth, this idea 



Palm Trees for Every Purpose 59 

perhaps arising from the fact that they are 
common near the seacoasts; but they can be 
found growing very w^ell indeed a hundred 
miles from the sea, provided there is ample 
rainfall. 

Besides furnishing the coir fiber, the co- 
coanut is an important article of food; for 
when the nut has been shredded, a rich oil 
can be washed out with water; and this 
" milk " is added to curries, or even used 
instead of water in which to boil rice. Very 
nice candies can also be made with cocoanut 
milk. The Burmese have a candy called 
chauk-chaw, which is a stifif jelly made of 
cocoanut milk and gelatin from seaweed. 

In order to get the fiber from the husk, 
this has to be soaked in water and then 
pounded, either with a hammer or in some 
form of machine; and the short lengths of 
brown fiber so obtained are then spun into 
yarn, from which the familiar rope and other 
articles are made. 

A very large number of cocoanuts are 
split open, and the meat dried in the sun. In 
this form they are exported to other coun- 
tries, where the oil is extracted for soap 



6o Afoot and Afloat Through Burma 

making and various other purposes. This 
form of the nut is what is called " copra," 
and has a rather rancid and sickly smell 
when drying. Sometimes steam launches 
carry nothing but cocoanut shells for the fir- 
ing of the boilers. 

The wood of the cocoanut palm is not 
of much use, being very coarse, and not very 
lasting. Often, too, the trunks of the palms 
are greatly bent; for as all the branches and 
nuts grow up at the top, — perhaps twenty- 
five or thirty feet from the ground, — if there 
is a high wind there is a very great strain on 
the tree, so much so that whole plantations 
can be seen with the trunks all bent in one 
direction. 

The leaves of these trees are valuable to 
the villagers, who use them for the roofing 
of their houses. The branches grow eight 
or ten feet long, with long, narrow leaves 
shooting out from both sides along the whole 
length. Perhaps it might be more correct 
to regard the whole branch with the side 
leaves as one huge leaf, like a fern. The 
people strip the leaves off and fold the ends 
over on long, thin strips of bamboo, and 



Palm Trees for Every Purpose 6i 

press and dry them as they do eng leaves. 

It is a very interesting sight to w^atch the 
men climbing the cocoanut palms in order 
to get the nuts. As there are no branches 
until the top is reached, it is not easy, you 
see. A very common way of reaching the 
top is to use a strong belt of rope or leather, 
w^hich is passed round the tree trunk and the 
climber's body; and as he steadily works 
his way up by the strength of his arms and 
legs, he draws the belt up with him, and, 
leaning his weight against it, has his arms 
free for getting a fresh hold higher up for 
another pull. 

There is another way, too, which I have 
seen used in tree climbing. This consists 
in driving a number of short pegs, one after 
the other, up opposite sides of the tree, like 
the spikes in a telegraph pole, making a 
series of small steps. In time the bark 
grows over them, so that all that is seen is 
a chain of convenient little bumps, which 
make it easier for the climber. This method 
seems to be used more particularly with a 
certain tall, smooth tree to which bees much 
resort, and which men, of course, are anxious 




Making Rope from Cocoanut Fiber 

Aung Baw's wife and daughters use a contrivance like this 

when spinning thread. 

(See page 42) 



Palm Trees for Every Purpose 63 

to climb in order to secure the honey and 
the wax. 

Another fruit-bearing palm is the pal- 
myra, which bears clusters of round nuts 
about four or five inches across, and in which 
are three or four pods of colorless jelly. 
They are rather tasteless, but being juicy and 
cold, even on the hottest day, they are quite 
refreshing. A common name for this fruit 
is " ice fruit." 

Perhaps more valuable than the fruit is 
the juice which is tapped oft from the top of 
the palmyra tree, and from which a very 
pleasant sugar can be made. But a good 
deal of this juice is allowed to ferment, and 
the drinking of it in this condition causes 
much harm. This is what is commonly 
known as " toddy," the palm being often 
called the " toddy palm." Toddy is also ob- 
tained from the date palm. 

While the cocoanuts and palmyra palms 
flourish in districts where there is plenty of 
rain, they also grow well in much drier 
parts. Unlike the cocoanut, the palmyra 
wood is quite hard and durable, although 
coarse, and so is much used for posts and 



64 Afoot and Afloat Through Burma 

rafters. This is very fortunate for the 
village people, as in dry sections of the 
country ordinary trees do not grow well; so 
without the palmyra palm, there would not 
be any cheap wood available for house- 
building purposes. 

In parts of India, too, the trunks of the 
palms are split down lengthwise and hol- 
lowed out, making rough little canoes, which 
the villagers use in the season of the year 
when their country is flooded. 

In climbing the palmyra tree, a ladder is 
used, as where the old branches have been 
broken or cut off, a stout stump is left, mak- 
ing ordinary climbing out of the question. 

There is still a third form of palm tree, 
and that is the one called the traveler's palm. 
This has large green leaves, very similar to 
those of the banana, which grow out from 
the top of the trunk in the form of a fan. 
If you should cut ofif a leaf from a healthy 
tree, even on a hot day, a large quantity of 
clear, cold water would flow out, giving you 
a cold drink. This comes as a great blessing 
to the thirsty traveler. It is from this fact 
that the name of the tree is derived. 



Palm Trees for Every Purpose 65 

So you see that in the hot countries, where 
we do not have many of the trees and pleas- 
ant fruits of the colder countries, the Creator 
has provided other things which are just 
suited to the climate. These, when rightly 
used, are a great blessing to mankind. 




Kamamaung Mission Launch, Salwin River 



MAKING GOOD ELEPHANTS OF 
WILD ONES 

Elephants Go to School, Drag and Carry Logs, and 
Play in the River — How They Are Trapped 

Poor old elephant! He seems to be stuck 
fast in the mud, for he has sunk in it almost 
up to his body. But no, he drags his feet 
up and slowly makes his way forward. What 
was his driver thinking about to let the ele- 
phant get into such a muddy place? The 
driver is perched up there on the elephant's 
back. 

The tide in the river has gone down, 
and left the big teak logs lying in the mud. 
The elephant brings them one by one to the 
sawmill. 

Look! He has reached one now. He 
curls his trunk around it and perches it upon 
his tusks. He does whatever the driver tells 
him to do. He knows the words of com- 
mand, like a soldier. It is a big log, and 
must be very heavy indeed; but the elephant 
is strong, and can pick it up without any help. 



68 Afoot and Afloat Through Burma 

When he has brought it up into the yard, 
his driver tells him to put it on the pile 
of other logs. And he obeys. He lays the 
log down in line with the others, butts the 
end of it with his big old head, so that 
the pile shall all be even, one log with all 
the others. 

The elephant has been taught in a school. 
I saw a young elephant, about ten years old, 
having his lesson one day. He was not 
strong enough to work with full-sized logs; 
so they had a small one for him to practise 
on. There was the pupil elephant doing just 
what his teacher told him to do. Sometimes 
he would butt the log, and sometimes he 
would kick it with his foot; and then some- 
times he would pick it up with his trunk. 
Before he could leave school he would have 
to learn to kneel down when told to. That is 
part of every well-trained elephant's lesson. 
It is when they kneel that people climb on 
their backs. Some will help lift the driver 
up with their trunks. Like a horse, they 
learn the words that mean " go ahead," or 
" stop," or anything else that elephants are 
expected to do. The driver does not con- 



Good Elephants of Wild Ones 69 

trol them with a bit and bridle and reins ; 
he just sits up on the animal's back and tells 
him what to do, or pokes him with his heels 
or with a driving hook. 

Oftentimes, instead of picking the logs 
up and carrying them, the elephant drags 
them along the ground. They do this in the 
forests, where there would not always be 
room for them to carry logs on their trunks. 
The men fix strong chains to the end of the 
log, and these are hooked to the elephant's 
harness. In this way he drags the logs to 
the river, where they can be floated down- 
stream to the mills. 

In different parts of India and Burma 
elephants are used to ride on. When the 
roads are bad and the country rough, this 
is a very pleasant way to travel. They are 
also used in parades and processions. On 
such occasions the elephant's harness is orna- 
mented with gold and silver fittings, costly 
saddle cloths (jhools, they call them in In- 
dia) made of velvet and richly embroidered. 
Wealthy men sometimes hire elephants to 
march in their family wedding processions, 
while others use them for hunting. 



70 Afoot and Afloat Through Burma 

You may think the elephant has a very 
hard life, plunging through the mud, or 
dragging big trees through the forest, and 
doing other heavy work. But he has his 
playtime too. In the evening, down at the 
river bank, he plays. The big old elephants 
like to get into the river for their evening 
bath. They roll and splash around like 
schoolboys out for a romp. They fill their 
trunks with water, and, holding them up 
high, blow the water out, making a big 
shower bath for themselves. After playing 
like that for a while, they solemnly march 
ofif to their stables, and enjoy their supper. 

But not all elephants are so tame and 
obedient as these. There are great numbers 
of wild elephants roaming about in the forests 
of India and Burma. Sometimes they do con- 
siderable damage to crops in the fields, and 
occasionally even trample village people to 
death. 

To catch the wild ones, men will place 
somewhere in the forest where the elephants 
roam, a very strong fence or palisade, mak- 
ing an inclosure through which the ele- 
phants cannot break. After the wild herd has 



Good Elephants of Wild Ones 71 

been located, a number of trained elephants 
are used as decoys, to entice the wild ones 
toward the palisade. Men mounted on other 
animals gradually drive the wild ones in the 
desired direction. So before long the big 
fellows find themselves in the inclosure. 
They are then driven into a smaller yard, 
the gate of which is closed. Men go among 
them, mounted on tame elephants, and tie 
them one by one with ropes or chains. They 
are then dragged away and gradually trained 
for useful service. But there is great rushing 
and crashing and yelling and bellowing dur- 
ing the process of training. This is danger- 
ous work, and only experienced men try it. 

You can easily understand that if it were 
not for the tame elephants, it would be very 
difficult to catch and train the wild ones. 
The older fellows set a good example to the 
others, and in this way teach them their 
lessons. 

Elephants cost a great deal of money, 
often three or four thousand dollars each. 
In the forests in Burma, village men fre- 
quently join together and buy one or more 
elephants in partnership. Then they earn 



72 Afoot and Afloat Through Burma 

money hiring their animals out to timber 
traders who have logs to be dragged down 
to the river, or to travelers who have jour- 
neys to make. Some big timber-trading 
companies keep five hundred or more ele- 
phants. 

These big fellows do not all have the same 
co'lor of skin. Some are lighter than others. 
These are spoken of as white elephants. 
They are very rare, and generally regarded 
as sacred. A few years ago they had one 
at the big Shwe Dagon Pagoda in Rangoon, 
and people came from miles around to see 
him. He was only a young fellow, and at 
best but a dirty white in color. 

The harness for elephants has one part 
that is just like a thick mattress. It is in- 
tended to protect the animal's skin from 
injury. Perhaps the elephants you have 
seen at the zoo look as if they had skin very 
thick and tough, and as if nothing could 
possibly hurt it; but really, the elephant 
drivers have to take very great care, for if 
their charges should be sick with sore backs, 
it would take one or two years for their 
thick skin to heal. This, of course, would 



Good Elephants of Wild Ones 73 

mean much loss to the owners, for elephants 
eat great quantities of food, whether they 
work or not. 

Do you wonder what elephants eat? 
Well, they are very fond of hay and such 
food. There are stories told of some of the 
army elephants with which the Indian gov- 
ernment used to drag heavy guns. These 
fellows were very fond of chupatties, or 
Indian unleavened bread. This was served 
out to them every day for food. When each 
animal received his pile of flat cakes, he care- 
fully balanced it on the end of his trunk, 
and could tell at once if he had been slighted. 

Wild elephants roam about the jungle, 
feeding on the grasses. The tame ones are 
often allowed to graze in the same way, 
although they generally have a long and 
heavy chain fixed to their hind legs to keep 
them from wandering away too far. 

The next time you see some teak furniture, 
you will remember the big old elephants in 
the forests of India and Burma, who do so 
much to get the wood for it. 



FLOATING LOGS DOWN THE 
RIVER 

A Boom — Grass Ropes — Rafts — Ironwood, Padauk, 
and Thabye — The Log That Was Not a Log 

After the teak and other kinds of logs 
have been taken to the river, they are branded 
with the owner's name at the end, and left 
to drift down the stream until they are 
stopped by a boom that is stretched across 
from one bank to the other. At the boom, 
the men sort the logs and make them into 
rafts. Then they are ready to go on farther 
down to the mills. 

To make a boom the men choose a place 
where on both sides of the river large rocks 
stand up high, like big posts. The boom 
is made of a number of stout cane vines. 

These canes are generally at least an 
inch thick, and often a good deal more; and 
they grow to a height of two or three hun- 
dred feet, overhanging high rocks and simi- 
lar places. When this cane dries, it is quite 
hard and stiff; but after it has been soaked 



76 Afoot and Afloat Through Burma 

in water, it can be bent enough to permit of 
its being tied in knots where necessary. So 
you see the cane vines are just like great 
natural ropes, and are very strong. 

The men take perhaps ten or twelve lengths 
of cane and bind them roughly together, and 
by joining others to the ends of these they 
make a sort of net to stretch across the river. 
They tie the ends to the two postlike rocks, 
and leave the whole boom slack enough to 
permit of its lying on the surface of the 
water. This allows for the gradual falling 
of the river as the season progresses. Then 
the part of the boom actually in the water is 
strengthened by logs tied to it all along its 
length. 

Anything that floats down the stream is 
stopped by the boom. The little canoes the 
village people use, slip by at the end under 
the cane, as it arches down from the rock to 
the water. Our mission launch rides over the 
boom without difficulty, a log being removed 
to let us pass in that way. Of course, the 
engine is stopped, else the blades of the pro- 
peller would be broken. Nothing else can 
drift through here, for the space is closed by 



Floating Logs 'jj 

floating logs which are shifted aside like a 
gateway when necessary. 

As logs are collected against the boom, 
the men make them into rafts, tying the logs 
together with either ropes or canes. When 
a number, perhaps five or six rafts, are ready, 
they go on their journey downstream. Some- 
times little bamboo houses are built on the 
rafts. They make a very pretty sight as they 
float peacefully on, tying up near shore at 
night and resuming their journey next day. 

The distance to the mills is perhaps eighty 
miles, and sometimes more. When the rafts 
near the town, they are taken in tow by tugs, 
which tow them to the special mills where 
they belong. 

In Burma there is a kind of timber called 
pyengadu, or ironwood, which is too heavy 
to float in water; so a number of bamboos are 
tied to each log. In this way it is possible to 
send them down the river in rafts. The 
bamboos are not wasted, but are sold sep- 
arately in the towns, where they are useful 
for many purposes. 

Pyengadu is a very strong wood, as its 
common name (ironwood) implies. It is 



78 Afoot and Afloat Through Burma 

much used for posts and heavy framework in 
houses, but as it is rather coarse, it is not 
much used for doors or windows, or for fur- 
niture. Teak, although it is more costly, is 
generally used for such purposes in Burma. 
The reason why these two kinds of wood are 
preferred is that they are not damaged by 
white ants, which quickly destroy many other 
varieties. 

Another kind of wood found in Burma 
is padauk, which comes from the tree called 
in English the gum kino tree. Burmese peo- 
ple say that when the padauk tree has flow- 
ered three times, the yearly rainy season will 
start. This wood is hard and smooth, some- 
thing like mahogany in appearance and use- 
fulness. 

Besides this there is the ingyin, or Shorea, 
tree, which is the sal tree of East India. The 
wood of it is not so good as teak. It is liable 
to be eaten by white ants, so it cannot be used 
with safety in house building; and as it twists 
and shrinks greatly when dry, it is not 
suitable for furniture. The Indian varieties, 
though, are better for this purpose than those 
found in Burma. 



Floating Logs 79 

The leaves of this tree are valuable, being 
used for the roofing of houses. While green, 
the leaves are folded over and skewered onto 
thin laths of bamboo about six feet long; a 
number of these laths are then tied tightly 
together, so that the leaves may dry out quite 
flat. These are laid on the roof much as 
you have seen carpenters lay shingles, row 
after row, each higher row overlapping the 
one just below. 

The villagers say that if a spark of fire 
should fall onto a roof of this leaf, it would 
just smolder a hole through; but with a roof 
of grass or cocoanut or other palm leaf (the 
nipa palm leaf, which the Burmese call 
dani, is much used), there would be great 
danger of a spark's setting the whole thing 
on fire very quickly. 

Buddhists say that Buddha was under a 
sal tree when he died. 

Another tree often seen in Burma is the 
Eugenia, a sort of myrtle, which the Burmese 
call thabye. The leaves of this are used in 
religious offerings, and are worn by soldiers 
as victors' garlands. There was a tree of 
this kind near one house we lived in, and 



8o Afoot and Afloat Through Burma 

from the branches swung two or three birds' 
nests shaped like bottles. 

All these logs are sent down the river and 
must be handled by the men. They become 
very expert in walking and running about on 
the rolling, turning, slipping logs. Gen- 
erally the weight of a man walking on it 
pushes a log under the water, but that does 
not seem to worry the men at all. Most of 
them are barefooted. The men catch the 
single logs in midstream. When one is seen 
approaching, two men will go out in a canoe 
and paddle alongside, and when they reach 
it, one of them will step onto it, and guide it 
to the shore with his paddle. All the time 
the log is rolling and twisting under him ; but 
he is quite used to that, and keeps his balance 
without any trouble. 

Sometimes I have had to cross a narrow 
stream on a bridge which was nothing more 
than a heavy log floating on the water, and 
loosely tied at either end to the banks. As I 
sank knee-deep in water when the log went 
down under my weight, it was no easy task to 
keep from tumbling off. What would it be 
on a log drifting free on a swift stream? 



Floating Logs 8i 

So the work goes on, year in, year out, 
bringing the valuable logs from the forests 
down to the sawmills, where they are cut up 
into useful sizes and shipped all over the 
world. 

The mission dispensary here helps the 
people who work on the logs and rafts. One 
evening two men were out bringing in logs, 
and saw what they thought was another log 
drifting down toward them. They paddled 
their canoe toward it. Suddenly they dis- 
covered that it was not a log at all, but a 
huge tiger swimming the stream. 

The brute gave chase, and as they came to 
a shallow part of the river, the tiger gained 
its footing and attacked the men in the canoe. 
With its forepaws it grabbed at the thigh of 
one of them, and badly tore it with its claws. 
The man had the presence of mind to jam a 
paddle down its throat, and so frightened it 
off. The injured man was brought to the 
mission dispensary, where the workers atr 
tended to his wounds. 




© U. & U., N. Y. 



A Native Sawmill 
" Zhip — zhup ! Zhip — zhup ! " Up and down goes the big saw. 



THE WAY YOUR HOUSE WOULD 
BE BUILT 

A Native Sawmill — Strange Methods in Carpentry 
— Using Toes for. Fingers 

'* Zhip — zhup! Zhip — zhup!" Up and 
down goes the big saw, slowly ripping up 
the tree trunk, while the sawdust (or saw 
food, as the Burmese call it) spurts out at 
each stroke. 

The men have erected what is called a 
saw pit, and in it they are cutting up wood 
for the house building. If there is a place 
with a convenient hole in the ground already, 
then there will be something that looks like 
an actual pit; but if not, the sawyers will 
probably get along with everything above 
ground level. The pit saves them the labor 
of lifting the logs up on the sawing platform. 
Burmese are not very ambitious, so it does not 
seem to matter how much trouble is caused 
later on. They consider that they have saved 
themselves the work of digging a pit. 



84 Afoot and Afloat Through Burma 

It takes two men to work the saw, one 
being on the ground and the other on the 
platform which supports the tree trunk. 
Naturally the work done in such a way is 
not so regular as that done at the sawmill; 
but it is really surprising how accurately 
these men can work. Generally they are paid 
for making so many cuts, each twelve cubits 
(eighteen feet) long and a span wide; so the 
more boards one orders to be cut out of a 
log, the more he must pay for the work of 
cutting it up. 

These men are working for Ah Ku, who, 
after saving up for some years, now has 
enough money on hand to enable him to 
start building himself a better house. Some 
little while ago he came to me with a re- 
quest that I go to the government office and 
secure him a permit to cut the trees he 
needed; and that is how I learned that he 
planned to build a house. You see, in order 
to stop the waste of valuable trees, the gov- 
ernment permits villagers to cut down with- 
out permission, only trees fit for nothing but 
firewood. This permission is supposed to be 
granted free, except in the case of specially 



Building Your House 85 

valuable woods, like teak, which are taxed 
unless required for a public purpose, such 
as a village bridge or school; but actually, 
the villagers fear much that their country- 
man, who may happen to be the petty govern- 
ment official whose duty it is to give the 
necessary license, will demand some gift for 
himself. 

Once the license has been granted, ar- 
rangements are made for the selected trees 
to be stamped with the government mark. 
Then a license must be secured to make a saw 
pit. Each of these occasions seems to de- 
mand a little gift. So the missionary is not 
infrequently called upon to protect the in- 
terests of his friends in such matters. 

The taxes that the government collects 
on teak and other valuable woods, pay for 
the expense of guarding the forests from 
wastage or damage, and, too, some consid- 
erable amount is left over for other useful 
enterprises, such as schools, road building, 
and the like. 

Ah Ku has his trees felled now, and the 
men are busy cutting out the big square posts, 
seven or eight inches thick, and the other 



86 Afoot and Afloat Through Burma 

pieces required for the joists and rafters. 
Thtn the planking for the walls and flooring 
must be cut. For the roof, tiles will be 
brought a good many miles across country 
by bullock cart. 

Watch the carpenter. He does not have 
a bench at which to work, but sits astride the 
piece he is planing. If it happens to be the 
edge of a plank that he is working on, then 
he will drive two pegs into the ground, one 
on each side of the board; and these serve to 
keep the work steady. If he should be cut- 
ting a joint with a chisel, he may use his feet 
to help hold the wood firm. 

We have worn shoes so much of our lives 
that we do not realize how much can be done 
with our toes and feet in the way of holding 
objects. These people are able to pick up 
small articles with their toes almost as readily 
as with their fingers. The carpenter is not 
the only one who holds his work steady with 
his feet; the shoemaker also does the same 
thing, thus leaving his hands free for his 
tools. This, of course, suits their habit of 
squatting on the ground to work. It is all 
very interesting to the foreigner. 



Building Your House 87 

When a number of posts and joists are 
ready, Ah Ku will begin the building. First 
of all he must dig the holes in the ground 
into which the posts are to fit. But he does not 
use a shovel for this work. 

There is one of his sons at work digging 
a hole. We should find it hard to do much, 
crouching in such a position, for he is squat- 
ting there on his haunches, with his knees 
under his chin, poking away with a blunt 
tool that brings the earth up very slowly. 
It is a convenient position though, for when 
the hlwa thamah or the let thamah (the saw- 
yer or the carpenter) feels inclined to chat, 
why, one is already comfortably seated, and 
so can carry on the conversation without the 
least inconvenience. 

One by one the posts are slipped into the 
holes dug for them; and until the joists are 
fastened on, they will be held upright by 
laths nailed on and arranged like a tripod. 
For a plumb line with which to see if each 
post is standing properly upright. Ah Ku has 
an old bottle tied to the end of a thin rope; 
and although it is rough-and-ready, as we 
should say, it serves the purpose to his satis- 




Burmese Natives at Home 

Notice the thatched roof, the matting wall, and the swinging 

window, also of matting. The high foundation posts 

keep the floor dry in the rainy season. 



Building Your House 89 

faction. He has not money enough to buy 
more elaborate tools. 

Once the frame and the floor of the house 
are in place, the family will probably " move 
in " to their new quarters, and build the walls 
round themselves little by little afterward, 
finishing the roof in the same way. For the 
time being, some rough matting will serve to 
partition off a part, and a thatch will make a 
roof, so they can get along. 

They must wait until after the next rice 
crop has been gathered in and sold before 
they will have money enough to buy all the 
materials needed; and as far as the work of 
building is concerned, Ah Ku and his sons 
will do most of it when they are not busy in 
the fields. 

Then, too, by moving into the new house, 
they can pull down the old one, and use 
whatever material in it is still good. 

When all is finished, they will have a 
really substantial house. Everything will be 
on the one floor, about six feet above the 
ground, with a large veranda outside, part of 
it roofed and part uncovered. Inside there 
will be just the main living-room, about 



90 Afoot and Afloat Through Burma 

twenty feet square, with a smaller room off 
from it. For a cooking place a heavy 
wooden frame is filled with clay, making a 
cheap hearthstone; on this some bricks or 
stones will be placed as supports for the 
cooking pots. 

Cooking over a wood fire on such an open 
fireplace, and inside the living-room too, will 
mean that there will be a good deal of smoke, 
and it will not be long before the nice, 
fresh, reddish tint of the newly planed wood 
(much of which is what is called pyinma) 
will disappear, and the whole place will be 
smoked and grimy. Up in the rafters a 
medley of fish traps, yokes for the oxen, spin- 
ning wheels, and a variety of other gear will 
in time accumulate, all to catch their share 
of smoke and grime. Yet, while we should 
probably find them a poor sort of place to call 
our home, these wooden houses, with their 
floors well up from the ground, and the ceil- 
ings of the room quite lofty, are much health- 
ier for the people than the poor mud huts in 
which so many live, across the Bay of Bengal 
in India. Every country has its own kind of 
house, adapted to its special conditions. 



Building Your House 91 

Little by little the seeds of Christian 
education are sown among the people, and 
their houses, as well as their lives, are puri- 
fied and brightened. Home becomes to them 
what it is to us, a foretaste of the mansions 
which Jesus is preparing for those who look 
for His appearing. 



GETTING FOOD FROM THE RIVERS 

Wading in High Water — Aung Baw's Fish Trap — 
Catching Fish Wholesale — Strange Nets 

Rain, rain, rain! It seems as if it will 
never stop. For days past it has poured 
down with hardly a break. Out in front of 
the house the river has steadily risen, and 
now is creeping over the banks, till we can 
see it shining through the grass. Farther 
down the river, where the ground is some- 
what lower, the water is a foot or more deep 
over the bank; so, were we on the launch, 
which lands its passengers at that point, we 
should have to wade to dry land with the 
water up to our knees. 

Ah, the sun is struggling to shine through 
the clouds, so let us come out and watch the 
stream for a little while. We put on shoes 
that have a few eyelets fixed in the uppers, 
just above the sole near the instep, so that 
when the shoes get filled with water, the 
water will drain away without difficulty. If 
we stopped to take them off every time they 



94 Afoot and Afloat Through Burma 

filled with water, we should not make much 
progress. 

There is a fish trap such as Aung Baw 
keeps under his roof. It is a strong basket 
made of split bamboo, and is about four feet 
long and a foot or more across. One end is 
pointed like a torpedo, while the other has a 
funnel-shaped collar fitted into it, with an 
opening left in the center. This wider end 
is fixed toward the direction from which the 
current flows. 

Above, there is a door all ready to slide 
down and completely close the opening. 
Whenever a fish swims in and starts eating 
the bait, it releases the door. The owner 
of the trap can go about his other work, 
coming now and then to see if he has caught 
anything. 

There is another way of catching fish, 
which is much used in the rainy season, but 
is useful only for very narrow streams. 

At some convenient place where the 
stream is about ten or twelve feet wide, a close 
fence is made of bamboo and other sticks, 
which are driven into the mud at the bottom. 
As far as possible all the little holes in the 



Food from the Rivers 95 

fence are filled up. It must be high enough 
so that the stream cannot flow over it except 
at one place in the center, which is about two 
feet wide. Leading from this gap in the top 
of the fence, a sort of platform is built, which 
stretches on the surface of the water perhaps 
six or eight feet down the stream. The bot- 
tom of it is of closely plaited bamboo, 
through which the water, but not the fish, 
can pass. It also has sides to prevent them 
from wriggling off over the edges. This 
platform slopes up slightly; so as the water 
comes rushing along and cannot get past the 
fence, except through the gap in the middle, 
it is all strained through the platform, leav- 
ing the fish, big and little, squirming and 
wriggling behind. 

Even the tiny little fellows just hatched 
out of their eggs are caught in this way; and 
it makes one wonder how a fish ever escapes 
to grow big. The " catch " of fish is taken 
home and cleaned, and packed with salt, so as 
to keep for the larger part of the year. This 
forms one of the principal " relishes " that 
the people have to eat with their rice. The 
salted fish is cooked into a sort of thin stew. 



96 Afoot and Afloat Through Burma 

Where there is a stretch of low, marshy 
country, still another method of fishing is 
employed. This time the bamboo is split 
into thin strips about a third of an inch thick 
and four or five feet long. These are laid 
side by side and fastened together by strings 
passed under and over, so as to make up 
lengths of screening which can be rolled up 
and easily carried about. Often one sees 
similar screening used in hot countries, as 
sun blinds; but here it has a different use. 

Across a corner of the marsh a number of 
stout stakes are driven into the mud, and to 
these the lengths of screening are tied, so as 
to form a light fence inclosing the corner 
from the rest of the marsh, except for a 
gateway which is left open at times. 

When the gate is closed, the fishermen 
go within the inclosure and wade about with 
nets fixed on handles, like butterfly or shrimp- 
ing nets. In this way they catch all the fish 
which may have been unfortunate enough to 
swim inside. When the " catch " has been 
made, the gateway is opened again and left 
so, until it is thought that there are enough 
fish inside to make it worth while wading 



Food from the Rivers 97 

up and down again ; and then once more the 
process is repeated. 

In the dry season, when the big rivers 
are neither so swift nor so muddy as they 
are in the rainy weather, the fishing is done 
with nets. Sometimes a long net, eight or 
ten feet broad, is used, light wooden floats 
being fixed to one edge, and small stone or 
metal weights to the other. This net is 
swiftly passed out over the side of a moving 
canoe, and floats in the water upright like a 
wall, the weights causing the one edge to 
sink, and the floats keeping the other on the 
surface. 

After being left in this way for a while, 
with each end secured in a canoe, the force 
of the stream naturally pulls the net into the 
form of a crescent; and then the canoes at the 
end gradually row to the shore, drawing to- 
gether as they go, and often inclosing within 
the net a good number of fish. 

Other nets are made up into a circular 
shape, about twenty feet or so across, and 
having small weights fastened to the edge. 
This net is held in the center by a man 
wading in the shallow water, who throws it 
7 



98 Afoot and Afloat Through Burma 

so that it may fall like a bell on the water, 
gradually sinking and drawing in as it goes. 
Quite large fish are caught in this way. 

The people make their own nets. This 
provides them with something to do during 
the dry season, when it is not possible to cul- 
tivate the fields according to their usual 
methods. 

According to the Buddhist teaching, it 
is held to be very wrong indeed to take life 
in any form; so fishing is not thought to be 
a nice occupation; but the fishermen con- 
sole themselves by saying that, after all, they 
do not kill the fish, but the fish just die of 
themselves when they are taken out of the 
water. In the same way, many of the peo- 
ple excuse themselves for eating meat, by 
saying that the butcher had killed the animals 
before they went to buy, so it was not their 
fault that the poor things' lives were taken. 
They also eat the flesh of animals which have 
died naturally; but this, while it certainly 
clears their religious scruples about taking 
life, is very unhealthful. 

As I have watched the fisher folk at their 
work, I have many times thought of those 



Food from the Rivers 



99 



humble fishermen of old, who, having re- 
ceived the Lord into their hearts for them- 
selves, under His blessing became fishers of 
men, and the foundation of His church. So 
I have been encouraged to believe that some 
of these simple folk of Burma would become 
faithful workers in the gospel cause — and 
some have. 




High Water 
Rain, rain, rain ! It seems as if it will never stop. 



BUDDHIST BOYS IN THE 
MONASTERIES 

Entering the Kyaung — Begging for Food — A Sad 
Belief — A Young Heart Touched 

Shwe Tha was on his way home from 
the monastery. A bright, intelligent-looking 
boy about fifteen years old, he was bowing 
down before a Buddhist monk when I first 
noticed him. This is not an uncommon sight 
in Burma, and is typical of the respect shown 
by people in Eastern countries to their reli- 
gious teachers. 

We were going up the river Salwin by 
steam launch. When the monk reached his 
village, I made friends with the boy. 

"Why do you worship the pongyi 
(monk) ? " I asked, as I sat down on the 
deck beside him. 

"" Thakin (sir), that is what I was taught 
to do in the kyaung (monastery)." 

" Oh, so you have been to the monastery, 
have you? " From the answer to this ques- 
tion I learned that Shwe Tha had left the 



I02 Afoot and Afloat Through Burma 

monastery only a short time before, and was 
now on his way to his village. 

It is the rule for every Buddhist boy in 
Burma to go to the monastery for a short 
period, if only for a few days. This is apart 
from any time he may spend there learning 
the ordinary lessons of reading, writing, and 
arithmetic. Although he may attend some 
other school for that purpose, he will pass 
a short time in the monastery, wearing the 
yellow robe like a regular monk, and receiv- 
ing special teaching in his religious duties. 

When a boy is about to enter the kyaung 
in this way, his friends make a feast in his 
honor, and presents are given to the monks 
who are to take the boy under their charge. 

Certain monasteries become famous all 
over the country, just like some of our col- 
leges; and boys will come from great dis- 
tances to be received into them, although 
practically every village has its own monas- 
tery, with one or two monks in it. Perhaps 
a number of other boys in the village are to 
go in at the same time; and if this should be 
the case, maybe they will all go in procession 
through the streets, their friends following 



In the Monasteries . 103 

after them. It is said that this procession is 
to remind people that the founder of the 
Buddhist religion, who was a prince, gave up 
his earthly friends in order to become a monk. 
It serves a real purpose, the same as wedding 
and other processions in the East, in giving 
notice to the whole village that a special 
event has taken place. 

After the feast is over, the boy goes to ' 
the monastery, where his head is shaved (he 
usually wears his hair long like a girl's), and 
he prays that he may be admitted as a shin- 
byu, that is, as a beginner in the order of 
monks. He is then robed in the usual yellow 
garments, the begging bowl is hung round 
his neck, and he is left to spend some time 
as a pupil of the pongyis. Perhaps he will 
stay as long as three or four months; but very 
often about a week is all the time that is so 
spent. 

Now he must live just like a monk. 
Early next morning he is roused up with the 
others by the tones of the wooden bell, which 
is sounded just before daylight. So many 
times I have heard it, — klonk, klonk, — not 
altogether unmusical either, sounding out in 



I04 Afoot and Afloat Through Burma 

the chill, damp morning air. In the monas- 
tery this means that all must get up, from the 
gray-haired seniors to the boys just admitted; 
and then after all have tidied themselves, the 
morning prayers are said. 

Now comes the part of the daily round 
that most impresses us v^ho are strangers ; for 
all must go out and beg the day's food. In 
a single file the yellow-robed, barefooted 
figures walk slowly down the village street, 
the hands of each clasped round the begging 
bowl as it hangs in front of him. No word 
or look of thanks may be given as the devout 
heap in their gifts; for it is their belief that 
the giver has been favored by this oppor- 
tunity of doing a good work. Perhaps the 
bowls are filled before the round of the vil- 
lage is completed, but that does not matter, 
for the extra food can be given to the birds 
and dogs, who are equally needy of food. 

Strictly, the monks should eat no food 
other than that which has been thus begged ; 
but in many cases another meal is cooked, the 
offerings received along the village streets 
being all given to the birds and dogs. Al- 
though all of them must go out and beg food 



In the Monasteries 105 

in this way, many of the pongyis are quite 
wealthy, for a great deal is given to them as 
presents on the occasion of various ceremonies 
and feasts. They are not supposed to handle 
gold and silver; so if they are at all rigid 
in their efforts to obey their law, they find it 
a little difficult to be faultless nowadays. 
For instance, when they travel, like every 
one else they must purchase the necessary 
tickets. Sometimes they will have a boy or 
other servant with them who carries the 
money, so that they themselves do not have 
to touch it. 

It is quite a common sight, though, to 
see a pongyi traveling alone on a street car, 
carrying his money wrapped in paper; and 
he hands this to the conductor, who takes out 
the amount required for the fare, rewraps 
the change, and hands it back; and thus the 
monk himself does not actually touch the 
money, but only the paper in which it is 
wrapped. 

During the daytime the younger members 
of the monastery are required to study the 
sacred books, committing much to memory. 
These books are frequently written on pages 



io6 Afoot and Afloat Through Burma 

made from the leaves of a certain tree, which 
have been pressed out quite flat and cut into 
pieces about twelve or fifteen inches by three, 
tied together by strings and laced through 
holes in one of the shorter sides. 

While the juniors are so engaged, the 
older monks spend a good deal of time just 
quietly sitting and thinking, for they believe 
that this is very helpful to the living of a 
good life and the gaining of deliverance. 
No food is taken after midday, so the second 
and last meal of the day is eaten just before 
the sun reaches its highest point in the heav- 
ens, and the shadows begin to slope toward 
the east for the dying of the day. 

Evening time sees all gathered together 
once more for prayers; and after the recita- 
tion by the younger ones of all the lessons 
they have ever learned, and the chanting of 
the praises of Gautama Buddha by all, the 
day closes with worshiping before his image. 
Solemnly they retire to rest; and it is this 
quiet routine of monastery life coming in the 
experience of nearly every young man in 
Burma, which so deeply roots Buddhism in 
him. 



In the Monasteries 107 

Sometimes a man will leave his regular 
work and his family for a while, in order to 
spend a few months in the monastery in a 
similar way. 

While this religion of the people of 
Burma sets before them some good laws, ac- 
cording to which they are expected to live, 
yet it has much in it that must make us sad. 
It teaches that there is no God at all, so that 
the Buddhist receives no help from any 
higher being in his endeavor to live aright; 
nor does he enjoy the peace which comes 
from faith in a God of love and mercy, and 
of infinite power. Moreover, the world, ac- 
cording to his belief, always was and always 
will be sinful and a place of sorrow; and 
there can be no real happiness whatever in 
life. 

The healthiest man may fall a victim to 
any and every disease; the very strongest of 
all must die; and after death the wealthiest 
man in the world has no more than the 
meanest beggar. The more healthy a man 
is, the more terrible for him the thought of 
the helplessness of the sick; the stronger he 
is, the more dreadful for him the knowledge 



io8 Afoot and Afloat Through Burma 

that some day he must lie cold in death; and 
the richer he may be, the more unwilling 
he will be to leave his wealth behind. So 
all longing for what this world has, and for 
life, only gives rise to added sorrow; and the 
only way to true happiness is to try to over- 
come all desire for life and the things it 
brings. 

Some of their books say the man who 
started this religion — his name was Gau- 
tama, and he lived many hundreds of years 
ago — was so anxious to be quite free from 
everything that might make him want to 
continue life, that he actually gave away his 
wife and his own little child, to a man who 
wanted them as slaves. However that may 
be, we do know that he forsook his family, 
leaving them to care for themselves, desir- 
ing only to try to find some way by which 
he might free himself from anything and 
everything that might bring him sorrow. 

How different all this is from the record 
of Jesus, who, though He was surrounded by 
perfect happiness and peace, of His own free 
will came to this earth that He might bear 
our sorrows, and so help us escape from 



In the Monasteries 109 

them. As for ourselves, instead of doing 
things just to be free from sorrow and care, 
we should, like Jesus and Moses, be ready 
to bear the sorrows of all. We should even 
be ready to endure eternal separation from 
God, if that would help our fellow men to 
obtain forgiveness of their sins. 

Well, now, I have told you so much about 
the life my young friend Shwe Tha lived 
while in the monastery, that you will have 
almost forgotten him; but now you will un- 
derstand how he came to go there at all, and 
a little of what he was taught to believe. 

After leaving the steam launch, he had 
some eighteen or twenty miles more to travel; 
and Shwe Tha was expecting to have to 
walk all that way, carrying his parcel of 
clothing with him. How happy he was 
when we gave him an invitation to travel in 
the little mission launch, which was wait- 
ing for me at the place where the steamer 
stopped. It did not take him long to accept, 
and away we started. 

At that time I had been away from 
Burma for some little while, having been 
transferred to India, where they speak a dif- 



no Afoot and Afloat Through Burma 

ferent language; so I thought this would 
be a good chance to revive my knowledge 
of Burmese, and meanwhile benefit Shwe 
Tha. 

Out came my Burmese Testament, — for 
our good Bible is to be had in many of these 
strange languages, — and I told the boy that 
I wanted him to correct my reading, and talk 
with me about the story I was going to read 
to him. In this way the two or three hours 
we had together passed pleasantly and 
quickly, and of course he was much inter- 
ested in what I read to him. 

It is quite common in some Eastern coun- 
tries for religious teachers to have one or 
more disciples living and traveling with 
them, and this boy wanted to be my disciple. 
I had to tell him that I was sorry that this 
could not be arranged, as I was in his coun- 
try only for a very short visit, and would 
soon be returning to the " foreign country," 
which is a name by which Burmans often 
refer to India. I am hoping to meet him 
again some day. 

In our traveling round the country we 
meet different friends, and learn from them 



In the Monasteries 1 1 1 

something of the way in which they live; 
and in return, we try to impart to all some 
knowledge of the way of life, wherein is 
perfect peace. 




Bowing Down to a Monk 



HOW YOUNG BURMANS MAKE 
MERRY 

A Water Festival — Attack on a Boat — The Light 
Feast — Buddha's Tooth — Funeral Fireworks 

" Look out! " 

I jumped aside just in time to avoid be- 
ing drenched with a pail of water thrown 
at the street car by a young scamp. 

You see it was the Burmese water fes- 
tival, and young Burma was out to have a 
good time. There were long squirts, tin 
cans, and pails — anything that would hold 
water was being used. Every one was join- 
ing in the merrymaking. 

A strange way of making merry, you may 
think, soaking other people and getting 
soaked oneself; but on a hot day — and this 
water festival comes in the hot season — it 
must be good fun, provided one is dressed 
for the occasion. 

Just what the reason for the festival is, it 
is hard to say, for explanations differ; but 
the great majority of the people do not con- 

8 



114 Afoot and Afloat Through Burma 

cern themselves with that question; and for 
them it is simply a fact that everybody has 
a holiday and makes merry. 

The celebration is naturally restricted in 
a city like Rangoon, where there are many 
foreign residents who hardly appreciate the 
fun from the Burmese viewpoint. But out 
of town the old-time spirit goes on una- 
bated. 

One time we were traveling up the Sal- 
win by launch on this particular festival. 
As we drew into the village of Nat Hmaw, 
we espied a crowd awaiting us. Hardly 
had the nose of the launch run into the bank 
when the battle began. Each of the wait- 
ing villagers had a pail or a can, and rush- 
ing into the river waist-deep, they began to 
deluge the lower deck of the launch. The 
passengers and crew returned the " attack," 
even the launch's pump being pressed into 
service. What laughing and shouting there 
was! 

There are a number of annual festivals. 
These are made the occasion of much fun. 
Even when there is no holiday, some one is 
all the time arranging entertainments. 



Making Merry 115 

They have such amusements at all times 
of the year except during the Buddhist Lent. 
This lasts about three months. As prac- 
tically every Burmese entertainment, or 
pway, as most of them are called, is held in 
the open air, and the Lenten period comes 
during the rainy season, one cannot help 
thinking that perhaps the refraining from 
festivities is as much the natural result of 
the unsettled and rainy weather as of any 
pious feeling of restraint. 

In the autumn of the year a very great 
festival is held. It is known to foreigners 
as the " light feast." In India the Hindus 
and Mohammedans each have a somewhat 
similar celebration. 

On this occasion practically every house 
is decorated with little lights placed along 
its main outlines. Hundreds of thousands of 
little candles, and tiny dishes of oil with 
floating wicks, are lighted up, and it all 
looks very pretty indeed. 

In the big cities like Rangoon the in- 
habitants of certain streets band themselves 
together to provide a common fund for dec- 
orations. So whole streets will be decked 



ii6 Afoot and Afloat Through Burma 

out with Chinese lanterns and colored paper 
screens and scenery. Sometimes a theatrical 
party will be engaged to give a public en- 
tertainment. 

In the large monastery compounds some 
wealthy persons who are desirous of acquir- 
ing " merit " for their good works, will give 
entertainments to which will go vast crowds. 
The whole place, instead of its usual quiet 
air of religious meditation, will have the 
appearance of an all-night fair, with side 
shows, dramatic performances, and eating 
shops; and till early dawn the sounds of 
Burmese bands rend the air, making sleep 
impossible for those who chance to live 
near by. No Burman, though, would want 
to sleep ; all who can, go to see the shows, 
snatching a little nap during the intervals 
of the performance or while the musicians 
have a rest. 

At such a national shrine as the big Shwe 
Dagon Pagoda in Rangoon, the crowds are 
enormous. Some few years ago a relic of 
Gautama Buddha, claimed to be one of his 
teeth, was discovered in India, and was pre- 
sented to the people of Burma. With great 



Making Merry 117 

pomp it arrived in the country, and was con- 
veyed to the platform of the pagoda. It 
was in a magnificently wrought casket. 

Up the long flight of stairs leading from 
the road, thousands upon thousands toiled, 
not so much to make obeisance to the tooth as 
to have a part in the fun that went on above. 
Along this staircase, and upon the platform 
itself, are a number of buildings used as 
reception-rooms; and on festival occasions 
these are occupied by wealthy people who 
entertain their friends lavishly. On such 
nights these places are ablaze with lights 
and thronged by crowds. 

In a building down on the main road, 
refreshments are available for all who care 
to partake of them, there being regular 
meals for the poor, and even European re- 
freshments for foreign visitors. 

The huge pagoda itself is lighted by 
strings of electric lamps; and here and there 
on the great marble platform surrounding 
it, different shows are in progress. 

What a strange scene it is, to be sure! 
The crowds seem bent on merrymaking; but 
here and there a pious group can be seen 



ii8 Afoot and Afloat Through Burma 

kneeling before a candle-lighted shrine, mut- 
tering unknown prayers, intent only on their 
own devotions and oblivious of the surging 
throngs that stumble past them. 

On the rivers the light feasts acquire an 
added point of beauty; for little rafts of 
lamps are released, to float away on the 
stream till some bend of the river hides 
them from sight. Also, at times boat races 
are held in big canoes holding twelve or 
fifteen persons, men and women taking part. 
In some parts of the country the paddlers 
are assisted by men who stand up and use 
their feet as paddles. 

Not all the festivals take place at night, 
but some are held during the day, as for 
instance the Zwegobin festival, which is held 
on the plain below the big hill near which 
Aung Baw lives. One year I happened to 
go through that section while this festival 
was in progress. Large bands of people 
had collected there. Formed into groups, 
they were going through a kind of dancing, 
very much like bands of trained gymnasts. 
I suppose their pilgrimage included a visit 
to the pagoda up on top of the hill, which 



Making Merry 119 

must be two thousand feet or more high. 
A large part of the way up is said to re- 
semble a rough staircase, making the ascent 
very difficult. 

Another occasion for great merrymaking 
is the cremation of some famous monk. It 
seems strange to talk of a cremation as an 
occasion of merrymaking; but such is ac- 
tually the case. When the monk dies, it is 
customary to preserve the body, perhaps for 
a year, in some way or other, rumor having 
it that this is often done by packing it in 
honey; for which reason the newcomer to 
Burma is not infrequently warned never to 
eat Burmese honey, lest it should be " second- 
hand." However that may be, the reason 
for preserving the corpse and thus delaying 
the final cremation is to enable those inter- 
ested to collect the funds necessary for a 
great display. 

Meanwhile the body lies in state in the 
monastery until the time arrives. Then a 
great pyre of sandalwood is built, theatrical 
parties and bands are engaged, and free re- 
freshments are provided. After several days 
of merriment, and probably the giving of 



I20 Afoot and Afloat Through Burma 

presents to a number of monks, the actual 
cremation takes place, the body being re- 
moved from its temporary elaborate cofl^in 
and placed on the sandalwood pyre. Per- 
haps a display of fireworks will bring the 
ceremonies to a close, and all will depart 
feeling that they have had a good time. 

One cannot help comparing the so-called 
religious beliefs of the Burmese with the 
actual practice of their lives; for there is 
a great difiference between the two. In his 
endeavor to obtain the peace he sought, 
Gautama Buddha turned his back on the 
pleasures of this world, and urged all men 
to follow him in this. The Burman, though, 
seeks to make of every circumstance of life 
an occasion for fun. Births, naming cere- 
monies, the entering of the monastery by 
young boys, marriage, and even death itself, 
provide him with fresh excuses for an enter- 
tainment; while the regular round of pagoda 
festivals insures a steady series of jollifi- 
cations should the other events be too few 
and far between. 

Gautama Buddha was right in warning 
men to avoid the allurements of this world's 



Making Merry 121 

pleasures; but he was wrong in teaching that 
humankind always was sinful and doomed 
to sorrow, and that we exist apart from any 
god; for thereby he has robbed his follow- 
ers of all belief in the wisdom and power of 
God, who, having worked to create His per- 
fect universe, is still working to uphold it, 
and to re-create man and this world free 
from sin and sorrow. So the Burman seeks 
his solace in a life of pleasure; but the only 
hope for him lies in the gospel of Christ. 









-- '•,i/^^\ 




By Bullock Cart in Burma 

Ox-carts are terribly slow conveyances, according to our 
Western notions. 



BY CANOE AND BULLOCK CART 
THROUGH THE FLOODS 

Making a Canoe — Water Spirits — Getting Wet — 
Orchids and Ferns — Dak Bungalows 

Sunshine or rain — which are we go- 
ing to have? 

Our interest in the weather was not un- 
natural, for it was the rainy season, and we 
had ahead of us a three days' journey in a 
canoe. When we left Rangoon on this trip 
to find a place along the banks of the Sal- 
win for a Karen mission station, we had 
intended to take a large covered boat from 
Shwegon, the point at which the steam 
launch stopped; but we found that no such 
boat was available just then, and that we 
would either have to go back, or make the 
best of it in a small open canoe. So when 
the sky looked clear as we were ready to 
start, we felt much relieved. 

The canoe that we hired was manned 
by three Burmans, including the steersman; 
and by the time our bedding and food sup- 



124 Afoot and Afloat Through Burma 

plies and our two selves were loaded in, it 
was quite full. Each of us had a narrow 
seat to himself, and barely enough room in 
front to crowd his legs into. 

Burmese canoes are hollowed out of tree 
trunks. After being felled and carefully 
chosen, the trunks are allowed to dry for 
several months before further work is done. 
The work of scooping out the hollow is slow, 
for it is done partly by burning out the 
wood, and partly by chipping; but in due 
course the desired shape is finished, and the 
outside is smoothed down and rubbed over 
with oil. A narrow planking is added to 
the sides to make them higher, and seats are 
built in across the canoe. 

The hollowing out stops some little dis- 
tance from each of the two ends, both of 
which are shaped into a flat seat for a steers- 
man, so the canoe can be paddled along 
in either direction without much difficulty. 
The back end usually has a longer seat than 
the front. 

These boats may vary in size from a 
small canoe in which only one or two per- 
sons can ride, to a large boat intended for 



By Canoe and Bullock Cart 125 

carrying rice to the mills, which will hold 
several hundred baskets of grain and require 
six or eight men to row it. A large boat 
of this description has a kind of cabin built 
at one end. For this purpose a roof of 
matting, oiled to make it water-tight, is 
arched over from one side to the other. The 
ends are closed in with board walls, each 
having a door in the middle. 

For the steersman there is an armchair, 
sometimes elaborately carved, perched high 
up at one end.^ In this he can look out 
over the cabin and direct the rowers in the 
front part of the boat. Sails are used when 
the wind is right; and if the boat is travel- 
ing near the shore, it is usually poled along. 
In small boats, leafy branches of trees are 
frequently used as a sail, they being held up 
to catch the wind while the people in the 
canoe have a rest from paddling. It is really 
surprising how rapidly a boat will go with 
this crude device. 

One time I saw a man who had no canoe 
at all, but who had made himself a little 
raft on which to travel downstream ; this was 
nothing but a few plantain tree stems, two 



126 Afoot and Afloat Through Burma 

laid one way and two the other, on which 
the man sat happily under his umbrella, 
drifting swiftly down the flooded stream. 
Probably he had some sort of paddle with 
him so that at his destination he could draw 
in shore; and there he must have left his 
frail raft to drift away. 

The boat we had hired had no sort of 
cabin or covering overhead at all, so we 
were out in the weather, whatever might 
come. 

Before starting out on a trip with the 
annual rice crop, or for other important pur- 
poses, it is usual for the boatmen to make 
offerings to the spirits of the water, fearing 
that if this were not done, all sorts of mishaps 
might befall them. 

Everything unpleasant that could occur 
on a river journey is said to be the fault of 
the mischievous spirits. If the men should 
run into a rock, though it might be because 
they themselves were careless, they would 
say it was the fault of some spirit who had 
unkindly put the rock in their way. The 
boatmen might forget to fasten the boat or 
an oar securely; and should any accident 



By Canoe and Bullock Cart 127 

happen as a result, that too would be the 
fault of the spirits, but never of themselves. 

So they think it just as well to try to 
make the spirits happy, in the hope that no 
trouble will arise. I am sure they would 
do better if they were more careful, and so 
kept freer from accidents; but that is not 
their way. 

It does not cost much to make an offering 
to the spirits; for although a quantity of fruit 
and cocoanuts and other good things are 
piled up on a tray and offered, the spirit 
beings do not actually eat them, but seem 
satisfied that all these are brought together; 
and then after the ceremony is over, Mr. 
Boat Owner and his crew of men sit down 
and feast on the ofiferings. 

This is what some Hindu shoemakers I 
knew, used to do. Once a year they would 
arrange their knives and other tools in a row, 
and offer a quantity of cocoanuts and fruit 
to them, so that the implements would work 
well for the next year, and not slip and cut 
them, or otherwise cause mischief; and then 
the men would divide all the offerings and 
eat them themselves. 



128 Afoot and Afloat Through Burma 

It being some weeks after the commence- 
ment of the annual rainy season, the river 
was flooded. The men had hard work pad- 
dling the canoe along. To avoid the full 
force of the current, they kept close to the 
bank wherever possible. This meant that 
sometimes we passed right in among the 
trees, for the lower bank had been over- 
flowed. Advantage was taken of this to give 
the rowers a little relief, by the steersman 
often pushing against the trees with a long, 
spiked pole, to send the boat along. 

Our hopes of a fine day were soon ended, 
for the clouds gathered and the rain poured 
down; and there we sat in that little canoe 
the whole day long, with the rain beating 
down on us. We tried umbrellas, but the 
water leaked through them. We endeavored 
to remedy this by rubbing a candle along the 
seams and around the hole where the stick 
comes through; but after all, we had to put 
the umbrellas down because of the canoe 
passing throug'h trees with low-hanging 
boughs. 

At last we decided that there was nothing 
else to do but sit still and get wet; and get 



By Canoe and Bullock Cart 129 

wet we did. It was in July, and therefore 
quite warm weather, yet by afternoon we felt 
chilled through from having to sit still in 
that canoe all day, soaked to the skin. 

To our delight we came alongside a tim- 
ber-rafting station; in one of the huts on a 
raft there was a good fire, so we sat down 
on the hearth and warmed and dried our- 
selves. This was not the end of the day's 
journey, however, for we still had a mile 
or more to complete; but in an hour or so 
we were able to camp for the night. In all 
that day's journey we had covered only about 
eighteen miles; so canoe traveling, against 
a strong current, is not very fast. 

Our camping place was quite comfort- 
able, at least it seemed so after having been 
cramped up in the little canoe all day. We 
had reached the village of Kawkayet, which 
is about a mile above where the mission sta- 
tion was finally built at Kamamaung; there 
we found a fine zayat, or rest house, in the 
monastery inclosure. 

These zayats are usually built by pious 
persons for the benefit of the monks, as well 
as for visitors and travelers; we were glad 
9 



By Caiioe and Bullock Cart 131 

indeed for the kindness of those who had 
built this particular one. True enough, it 
was only a floor and a roof, with a wall 
along one side, but that was enough to keep 
the wind and rain out; and down underneath 
there was space for us to make a fire over 
which to dry our clothes and bedding and to 
do our cooking. 

For the fireplace we soon found three 
fair-sized stones on which to rest our earthen 
cooking pot, and firewood was available in 
great abundarrce. It was my task to cook, 
while my companion. Elder G. A. Hamil- 
ton, looked after the wet things, which must 
be dried before we could start out again. 
We had to do this before getting any sleep, 
for everything we had was soaked. 

Camp cooking is apt to be a little rough- 
and-ready; but our keen appetites make up 
for a good deal. I fear the hungry-looking 
dogs which had been attracted by the smell 
of what was going on, did not get many 
pieces by the time we had finished. We had 
the same bill of fare twice every day for 
about three weeks, with the exception of one 
day when supplies ran out, and we had to 



132 Afoot and Afloat Through Burma 

content ourselves with ship biscuit and con- 
densed milk. 

It was Friday afternoon when we reached 
Kawkayet, so we spent the Sabbath there, 
starting out again on Sunday morning. With 
our camp cots fixed up in the zayat, we were 
as happy as could be. 

This village stands at the junction of the 
Yonsalin tributary with the main Salwin 
River; and it was along the former that we 
started out early on Sunday morning, to con- 
tinue our journey upstream. It is not pos- 
sible to travel much farther along the 
Salwin from this point, for a few miles up- 
stream there are very big rapids over which 
boats cannot travel, and one must go a long 
distance across country in order to avoid 
them, if he wishes to travel on the river far- 
ther up. Timber rafts can come down over 
the rapids when the river is at its highest 
point; but even then it is a dangerous place. 

I wish all could see the beautiful ferns 
and orchids and other plants that we saw as 
we journeyed along. Here and there the 
whole river bank was overgrown with lovely 
maidenhair ferns. Farther along there were 



By Canoe and Bullock Cart 133 

masses of bright-green, velvety leaves, each 
with five jet-black spots on it, much like the 
impress of one's finger tips. All along 
stretched a fringe of forest, and it seemed as 
if every tree trunk was festooned with or- 
chids and creepers. Occasionally a troop of 
monkeys swung through the branches; here 
and there a flock of peafowl, brilliant of 
plumage, strutted about in search of their 
morning meal. 

Very few dwelling-houses were to be 
seen, for the villagers seem to prefer to 
screen themselves from the view of passers-by 
on the river, and do not generally cut the 
trees right on the bank. This may be a re- 
minder of the old days when the country was 
unsettled, and the different tribes were con- 
tinually warring one against another. 

Slowly we journeyed on, the current 
growing swifter the farther we went, and our 
progress slower as a result. About ten or 
twelve miles was all we covered in the whole 
day's rowing. The journey could hardly be 
called tedious, however, so beautiful was 
everything around us. Each new bend in 
the river brought to view a fresh stretch of 



134 Afoot and Afloat Through Burma 

cloud-capped hills, for the river runs down a 
very narrow valley; and on every hand were 
giant trees and palms and plants in the 
greatest profusion. Sometimes a lone duck 
would be startled into flight by our coming, 
or now and then a small cloud of bright- 
hued butterflies winging by would delight 
our eyes. 

Riding in the canoe was not devoid of 
excitement either. Continually we came to 
places where a snag of rock standing out 
from the bank, or a fallen tree behind which 
the floating rubbish had accumulated, was 
holding up the progress of the water, caus- 
ing miniature rapids. Our boatmen would 
have hard work to round these awkward 
corners. 

At times we almost seemed to be slipping 
backward, so swift would the eddy be; but 
with their shouts of '' Tek! tek! tek! " (Row! 
row! row!) the men would ply their pad- 
dles the harder, and slowly but surely we 
would get past the obstruction. 

About midday we pulled into a sand bank 
and got out to stretch our cramped limbs 
and eat our lunch, for the canoe was too nar- 



By Canoe and Bullock Cart 135 

row to permit of our turning about and 
undoing our packages as we went along. 

Evening saw us at the village where we 
were to pass the night, and this time we 
were fortunate enough to have a dak bun- 
galow to shelter us. These houses are built 
by the government, mainly for the use of 
the officials who must travel over the coun- 
try, but they can be used also by other 
respectable travelers; being supplied with 
chairs, beds, tables, and other like conven- 
iences, they are very comfortable places in 
which to spend the night. Each house, ex- 
cept a few which have no furniture in them 
and which are intended only for halting 
places during a day's march, is in charge of 
a watchman, who sees that the place' is kept 
clean, and keeps lamp oil on hand for sale 
to visitors. 

The next morning we had a look around 
the place near the bungalow, and found only 
a few poor huts, one being a little shop in 
which such village necessaries as candles, 
coir string, and similar articles were for sale. 
One time the watchman from this particular 
bungalow was carried ofif by a tiger, which 



136 Afoot and Afloat Through Burma 

will give you some idea of how lonely a 
place it is. 

Still another day's journey in the canoe 
lay ahead of us; and the end of this brought 
us to a point from which a good cart road 
stretches across country, considerably short- 
ening the distance; so we paid off our canoe 
men, and arranged for a bullock cart to 
take us on at daybreak next morning. 

Before the first streaks of dawn we were 
up, breakfast was cooked and eaten, our bed- 
ding was packed, and a start made; but we 
were not to get very far that day. The first 
hindrance came about a quarter of a mile 
from the bungalow, where the ruts were so 
deeply cut in the road that the hub on one 
wheel jammed on the road surface. 

Being at a place where we were going 
uphill, the oxen seemed unable to move at 
all, and there was nothing else to be done 
but to roughly repair the rut and bodily lift 
that side of the cart out of it. Once past 
this difficulty, everything seemed to go well 
until about four miles had been covered; 
and then we came to an obstacle which made 
it impossible to go any farther that day. For 



By Canoe and Bullock Cart 137 

days it had been raining steadily, with 
scarcely any break at all, as we had found 
to our discomfort in the canoe; and as a 
result the forest streams were rushing tor- 
rents. The one we had now reached was 
bridged over, to be sure; but so swollen was 
the stream that the water was four feet deep 
on top of the bridge, and that was altogether 
too much for the oxen to pass through. 

Reluctantly we turned back, for the four 
miles covered had meant two or three hours 
of trudging behind the dawdling bullock 
cart, and now it was all in vain; and who 
could tell when the rain would stop, or what 
trouble we might have next time getting the 
cart over the bad place in the road that had 
already held us up that morning? ' How- 
ever, the delay was inevitable, so back we 
went and once more settled ourselves in the 
bungalow, hoping that the rain would slacken 
enough to give us hope of getting ofif in the 
morning; but we were to spend three whole 
days in this house, waiting for the weather 
to change. 

The bungalow was certainly in a beauti- 
ful place, for just here the river swung 




Chapel,' Kamamaung Mission 



By Canoe and Bullock Cart 139 

around a sharp bend; and years of torren- 
tial rains had worn away the banks till it 
was a broad stream. All around were hills; 
while scattered rocks divide the water into 
swirls and eddies, making the crossing by the 
canoe ferry an exciting journey. I must 
confess, though, that in time the beauty of 
the scenery and the excitement furnished by 
the rushing of the flood seemed insufficient 
to make up for the monotony of staying in 
that bungalow while outside the rain poured 
down incessantly. Moreover, provisions were 
running low, and a diet of plain boiled rice 
for an indefinite period did not seem any too 
inviting; so it was a great relief when the 
downpour abated enough so that by Friday 
morning we could once more make a start. 

This time, too, we stuck in that rut; but 
having conquered it once, we did not let that 
dismay us; and glad we were when the 
bridge which had been our undoing earlier 
in the week, came in sight, and we found 
that the water had gone down so as to be 
no more than knee-deep. 

On we trudged, mile after mile, finding 
new beauties in the foliage and in the bright 



140 Afoot and Afloat Through Burma 

colors of the butterflies and birds. Presently 
we came across the fresh tracks of a deer 
which had passed for a mile or more down 
the road. Poor thing! there were other 
tracks there too. Evidently a tiger had fol- 
lowed it. Both trails turned ofif into the 
jungle, and we saw no more of either; but 
this was just a little sign of the daily trage- 
dies that take place in the depths of the 
forest. 

Ten miles or so along we made our first 
halt, an unfurnished bungalow being here for 
the convenience of travelers, — just a little 
clearing in the forest and a tiny mat-walled 
house, with a gurgling brook near by, but 
it seemed more beautiful to us than the finest 
hotel could have been. 

As fifteen miles still remained before we 
could camp for the night, we had not long 
to spend over breakfast, but hurried on. Ox- 
carts are terribly slow conveyances, accord- 
ing to our Western notions, making about 
two miles an hour on an average, and a total 
of ten miles a day on a long trip. This trip 
we were making was just twenty-five miles 
in all, and it is usual to make this distance 



By Canoe and Bullock Cart 141 

all in one day; but if we had tried to over- 
hurry the bullocks, they would have been 
too tired to make such a long run. 

Kway Thee Kyaung (Dead Dog Creek) 
was the name of one stream we had to 
pass, and a name not very suggestive of 
civilization either. In fact, the road was 
deserted; for apart from a cluster of houses 
belonging to the men whose business it is to 
repair the road, we passed hardly half a 
dozen huts in the twenty-five miles. For a 
companion we had a Chinaman, who was 
very glad of permission to walk with us, as 
he had the journey to make, but because of 
the reputation the district has for tigers, was 
afraid to go alone. 

The tiger reputation is not unmerited 
either, for one was shot within a mile or so 
of the mission bungalow at Kamamaung, 
and another mauled the man who was get- 
ting logs not far away. 

The village people catch such animals in 
traps, or in pits at the bottom of which sharp 
palings are fixed. Leopards also are han- 
dled in this way. Only once do I remember 
receiving definite news that a man had been 



142 Afoot and Afloat Through Burma 

killed and eaten by one of these animals; and 
that was some ten miles from a village where 
I was canvassing, and on a road over which 
I had once been. Not infrequently calves 
and other small animals are carried ofif. 

The approach of dusk saw us at the end 
of the road; and here, having paid off our 
cartmen, we took the canoe ferry across the 
stream, to camp again in a dak bungalow 
for the night. Only nine miles remained 
to be completed before our destination 
should be reached; and this short distance 
was covered in a morning's ride in another 
cart. Thus it had taken us about nine days 
to cover some seventy miles since we had 
left the steam launch. In the dry season the 
journey can be made in two or two and a 
half days by cart; but the boat journey is 
slow for a good part of the year, either be- 
cause the river is in flood and the current 
swift, or because the river is low and prog- 
ress is hindered by rocks and gravel banks. 

Our return journey was made much more 
quickly and conveniently, for we were for- 
tunate enough to secure passage in a boat 
that was carrying wolfram ore down to the 



By Canoe and Bullock Cart 143 

town, and in this way we easily covered in 
two days what had taken us nine days to 
accomplish going up. 

This ore had come over the hills on the 
backs of elephants, the caravan route coming 
in at this point from Siam. It was just 
another illustration to us of how men have 
reached out to the lonely places of the earth 
in search of the riches that perish. Should 
we not then be ready to travel to the same 
parts, and even farther, that men may re- 
ceive from us the imperishable riches of the 
gospel of Jesus Christ? 

Our visit at that time was not without 
results, for through it was secured ultimately 
a grant of considerable land on which, with 
some adjacent land that was purchased, the 
Kamamaung station is now built; and in 
^' the little brown church in the woods," built 
close by an old ruined pagoda, a happy 
throng of boys and girls meet daily to praise 
their Saviour and to learn more of His ways. 




be 



^ 



K 



WITH MA DWA AT THE 
SCHOOLHOUSE 

Pa Khay — Eating Rice Balls — Cooking in Mud Pots 
— Juicy Mangoes — The Sensitive Plant 

Ma Dwa, as she sits on the ground with 
the bamboo tray in her hands, is very busy 
preparing the rice for the school children's 
breakfast; but I am sure she will be glad 
to stop and tell us something about her work. 

Thump, thump, thump, goes the heavy 
beam with which the paddy is first beaten 
in order to make it easier to remove the 
husk. You can see it all ready to fall with 
another heavy thump. There it is, behind 
the post of the house, with the round wooden 
pin which falls on the rice in the hole be- 
low, half hidden. 

I think it is little Pa Khay, standing there 
smiling, with his hands resting on the two 
uprights, who is working the beam this 
morning. When he steps onto his end of it, 
up comes the other end quite high in the air; 
and then he steps ofif again, and down comes 



146 Afoot and Afloat Through Burma 

the pin, right into the hole, crushing the 
grain that has been thrown into it. Pa Khay 
has been in the school at Kamamaung for 
about a year, and is getting on very well 
indeed. 

His parents and relatives had taught him 
to fear and worship evil spirits; and when 
he first came to school, he was smoking a 
nasty tobacco pipe. Think of a boy as small 
as Pa Khay smoking! Yet probably his 
mother taught him to smoke when he was 
just a tiny baby in her arms. He has learned 
better now, and does not smoke any more. 
And instead of wanting to make offerings 
to the evil spirits, he likes to go to Sabbath 
school, and has his memory verse all ready 
to recite to the teacher, and knows his les- 
son well. 

But there, I am not telling you much 
about the breakfast rice, am I? Before the 
husk is removed we usually call the grain 
paddy; and Ma Kai keeps it stored in a big 
basket. That is a Burmese granary. It is 
made of stout strips of bamboo strongly 
woven together and then roughly plastered 
over to fill up the cracks. Sometimes these 



With Ma Dwa 147 

granaries are six feet or more high, and just 
as much across; so they hold a great deal of 
paddy; and they must needs be big too, be- 
cause many of the people in Burma use rice 
as their principal food, making relishes to 
eat with it. 

You see those two baskets on the ground 
in front? The one to the right of Ma Kai 
is lying on its side. Well, a village man 
once told me that when they are putting 
aside the year's supply of rice for the house- 
hold use, they measure out twelve basketfuls 
as each person's share. Isn't that a lot of 
rice to keep for one person? You would 
think they would get tired of eating so much 
of it; but they do not seem to. They cook 
it without salt, or sugar, or anything but 
just water. 

I have seen little Karen children sitting 
on the floor around a bowl of steaming hot 
rice, and with their tiny fingers they would 
first work the rice into round balls, so large 
that you would wonder how they could ever 
eat them; then, laughing and chatting, they 
would pop those rice balls into their mouths, 
eating with as much relish as we would the 




His First Day in School 

When Pa Khay first oame to school, he was smoking a nasty 

tobacco pipe. He has learned better now, and 

does not smoke any more. 



With Ma Dwa 149 

nicest cake you can think of. Alongside sat 
the baby brother, too small to feed himself; 
so sister would give him a nice little rice 
ball occasionally, and he was as happy as 
the rest of them. 

Pa Khay and the other boys standing near 
have a great deal of paddy to beat, as there 
are about forty hungry little mouths to fill 
at Kamamaung school. As soon as Pa Khay 
has finished one lot, it is put into the mill to 
have the husks removed, while he goes on 
and beats another lot. When he is tired, 
another boy takes his place. A boy is work- 
ing the mill. He is standing with his back 
toward us, just behind the big pin in the 
beam that Pa Khay is working up and down. 
In his hand the boy is holding a long han- 
dle which he is pulling back and forth. 
That makes one of the flat stones in the mill 
rub over the other, removing the husk from 
the paddy which passes slowly between the 
two. 

If you look carefully, you will see lean- 
ing against the bottom of the mill on the 
right-hand side, the square tin in which the 
rice is caught as it falls. Then Ma Dwa 



150 Afoot and Afloat Through Burma 

takes it and cleans it. She puts it on her 
flat tray and deftly throws it up into the 
air, catching it again as it comes down in a 
little shower, only to throw it up again and 
again until the breeze has carried off the 
bran, leaving the white rice all ready for 
Ma Kai. She looks it over for the last time 
for any grains not yet husked, and then puts 
it into the big pot over the brightly crack- 
ling fire. 

Have you ever seen any one cook in a 
pot made of mud? Yet that is what many 
people do in Burma. The potter, after shap- 
ing the vessel, hardens the mud by baking 
it as tiles are made; and then this makes 
a very fine cooking vessel. There is a nicely 
fitting lid, which does not get as hot as a 
metal lid would, so Ma Kai can easily lift 
it when she wants to stir the rice with her 
wooden stick. The fireplace is a very sim- 
ple one, for just a few large stones or bricks 
have been arranged to close in three sides 
of a square; and the pot rests on these while 
the wood fire burns merrily below. 

It is a happy family of boys and girls 
who bow reverently while a blessing is asked 



With Ma Dwa 151 

upon the morning meal. Ma Kai knows just 
how to make all sorts of little relishes that 
Karen boys and girls delight in. 

Sometimes the children gather herbs; for 
they all seem to know which leaves may be 
eaten and which are poisonous. Sometimes 
the relish is nice, tender, young bamboo 
shoots; or perhaps some clean fish caught 
fresh from the mighty Salwin River; or 
grated cocoanuts, or plantains, or green jack 
fruit. How good they taste! 

I wish all of you could sample some of 
the dishes that these people make. Of course, 
it would not be nice for us to eat all the 
dishes they eat in the villages; for in their 
own homes these boys and girls have eaten 
frogs and monkeys and snakes, and other like 
things. I have heard of their even eating 
wild cat, which was cooked with the fur 
and all; but the boys and girls in our school 
have learned to try to keep their bodies 
clean and healthy, as an honor to the God 
who created them. 

There, I almost forgot to tell you about 
the mangoes. What a feast the boys and 
girls do have at Kamamaung in the mango 



1^2 Afoot and Afloat Through Burma 

season! All around the little schoolhouse 
are the trees, and the breeze keeps shaking 
the fruit down. Pat, pat, pat, they fall on 
the ground; and Pa Khay and Nau See and 
the other boys and girls find it hard to sit 
still till lesson time is over, for Oo, the little 
brown monkey, is out there having all the 
good fruit to himself. 

Presently the bell rings and the classes 
break up, and away down the steps go forty 
pair of little feet, scurrying to see who 
can get to the mango trees first. There are 
enough mangoes for all, though. Oo takes 
his share and scampers up the tree, and the 
boys and girls run here and there after the 
big juicy fruit which comes tumbling down 
as the monkey shakes the branches in his 
hurried flight. 

In the morning, while some of the boys 
and girls are helping prepare breakfast, oth- 
ers are out sweeping the schoolhouse and the 
compound, or cutting down the weeds which 
grow up so rapidly; so in one way or an- 
other all help. 

The weeds remind me of a peculiar plant. 
All along the sides of the paths we shall find 



With Ma Dwa 153 

patches of it. Did you see that? As soon 
as I touched the leaf with my foot, it began 
to close up, and now all the leaves on the 
stem are doing the same. Whenever it is 
touched, even ever so lightly, the leaves close 
up ; so English people call it the sensitive 
plant. Another name for it is " mimosa." 
Burmese call it hti ka-yon; for I think the 
closing up of the leaves reminds them of 
an umbrella, which is called hti in their 
language. 

This plant is quite common in Burma 
and grows wild, but in some parts of the 
world people regard it as very strange, and 
keep small plants as a curiosity. There are 
some kinds of flowers which close up when 
they are touched; it seems that they do this 
in order to catch insects which have come 
to them for the honey. The petals of the 
flower close over the insect, and the plant 
actually feeds on the little prisoners it makes 
in this way. 

Ma Dwa wants us to see her little family 
before we go. Here is the eldest, Nau Bley, 
which means Miss Smooth. Next to her is 
Nau Too, or Miss Gold; while number three 



154 Afoot and Afloat Through Burma 

is Nau See, or Miss Little. Nau Sey is the 
fourth, and her name means Miss Silver; 
while the smallest little girl has the quaint 
name of Nau Obwe, or Miss Sabbath; for 




Ma Dwa's Family 

she was born after Ma Dwa and her hus- 
band, Tha Myaing, had accepted the Sab- 
bath truth. Baby brother rejoices in the 
name of Enoch. 

It is not usual in Burma for all to bear 
the father's name as a family name, as we 
do; but for each one a separate name is 
chosen, generally with some definite mean- 



With Ma Dwa 155 

ing, like those mentioned above. Among 
the Buddhist Burmese the first letters of the 
names are settled according to the day of the 
week on which the child was born. 

If you meet a Burman whose name be- 
gins with a vowel, then you can know that 
he was born on a Sunday; while if it starts 
with L or W, then he must have been a 
Wednesday baby, and born in the morning 
too; for had it been the afternoon of that 
day, his name must begin with either an R 
or a Y. " 

In Karen, Sau and Nau correspond to 
our Mr. and Mrs., while in Burmese they 
say Maung and Ma instead. Many Karens 
use Burmese names. 

Well, we must not take any more of Ma 
Dwa's and Ma Kai's time this morning with 
our questions, else breakfast will be late; but 
we will go on to some others of our friends, 
and see what they can tell us about things 
the Juniors in Burma do and see. 



STRANGE BURMESE WAYS OF 
HELPING THE SICK 

Black Tortoise Tied to Post — Charms — Strange 
Medicines — Pa Khay and the Pictures 

" Shway Ain, why have you tied that 
there?" 

I had climbed up the ladder onto the 
veranda of the house of a Pwo Karen friend; 
and sitting on the floor to chat with him, I 
had caught sight of a small black tortoise 
with one leg tied to a post of the house. Of 
course I was curious to know the reason for 
this ; for, as I have told you, in the- villages 
in parts of Burma, people eat such animals 
as frogs, and perhaps he might be keeping 
this tortoise in readiness for dinner; but that 
did not prove to be the case. 

'' Saya" (teacher), replied the old man, 
" as long as we have that tied there, our baby 
will not get sick." 

I really hope the baby never fell sick; 
for with its friends depending on such a use- 
less remedy, the poor little thing would have 



15B Afoot and Afloat Through Burma 

had a very unhappy time; but this idea that 
Shway Ain had about the tortoise is just 
like many other ideas village people have. 

If you had been there, you w^ould cer- 
tainly have wanted to know more about these 
strange beliefs; so you will not be surprised 
when I tell you that I asked Shway Ain if 
there was anything else which he thought 
the tortoise could do. This further ques- 
tion led to my being told about many kinds 
of medicines, which I am sure none of you 
would ever like to take. 

I think all of you know that when peo- 
ple have smallpox, generally their skin is 
left badly scarred by the disease; but I was 
told that this would not happen if the sick 
person would be careful to bathe in water 
in which just such a little tortoise was swim- 
ming about. Then, too, there is one kind of 
fever which these village people think can 
be cured by eating soup made from a black 
monkey with a white face. I had often seen 
these little fellows playing about in the trees 
in the woods, and climbing over rocks; but 
I had never thought that they could be so 
valuable! 



Helping the Sick 1^9 

As a remedy for sore throat, Shway Ain 
told me I should take some gall from a 
python, which is a very large snake. He did 
not tell me, though, how I might first catch 
the snake. 

I must confess that I have never tested 
any of these strange medicines on myself; 
but unfortunately for themselves, the village 
people often try their own methods before 
bringing the sick or injured to the mission 
dispensaries, or other places where proper 
help can be given; so it is much harder to 
assist them than it would be if they would 
come as soon as they fall sick or get hurt. 

Cuts and other wounds are often covered 
with a filthy plaster of some sort, in order 
to stop the bleeding; but often this treatment 
does much harm, as the wounds are made 
dirty, and so fester and cause much trouble 
and suffering. Some people have great faith 
in charms. A young man once came to me 
with a badly cut arm, and to help heal the 
place, he had tied a charm above the wound. 

This thing in which he put so much faith 
was just a small piece of dirty paper on 
which some letters were written, and in 



i6o Afoot and Afloat Through Burma 

which a few cloves were wrapped; and it 
was tied to the arm with sewing thread. I 
tried hard to get him to give it to me as a 
curio; but while he told me that he him- 
self was ready to give it, he excused himself 
by saying that he feared his mother would 
be angry if he did so; so I did not get it. 

Other people have charms tattooed on 
different parts of their bodies; or the charm 
may be written on small pieces of metal 
which are put in under the skin through slits 
cut for the purpose. The skin grows over 
the charm in time, so all that is to be seen 
is a small, hard lump where the metal has 
been put in in this way. Some believe that 
such things can protect them even from bul- 
lets fired from a gun. There are those, too, 
who, because they believe that sickness is 
caused by evil spirits, make offerings to them, 
in the hope of pleasing them so that they will 
take away the illness. 

Perhaps an altar of bamboo is built in 
the house, at which fruit or meat or nuts are 
offered; or maybe a tiny boat is made, on 
which the offerings are placed; and then 
after prayers to the evil spirits have been 



Helping the Sick i6i 

said, the boat is left to float down the river. 

In the villages one often meets the native 
medicine sellers with their supplies of oils 
and powders. Instead of bottles for the oils 
they have small skin bladders taken from 
animals, while leaves take the place of paper 
for wrapping up the powders. 

The same so-called medicines are given 
for all sorts of widely differing complaints; 
and a great deal seems to depend on the care 
with which the patient uses the stuff that has 
been given him. Perhaps it is that he must 
not tell anybody he has got it; or he must 
take it when nobody is watching, or when 
the moon is in the proper place; and if it 
should be that it fails to cure the. disease, 
then it can be nothing else than that the 
proper directions have not been followed, 
but never that the medicine was not good. 

Many, many people are helped by the 
little mission dispensaries. The work done 
in those places, and by missionaries as they 
go through the villages, wins many friends 
for them. Such kindnesses are rarely forgot- 
ten; and in their own way, perhaps with a 
present of cocoanuts or vegetables, or by do- 




Superstitious Burmese 

" Saya, as long as we have that charm tied there, our baby 
will not get sick." 



Helping the Sick 163 

ing some little service, the people try to show 
their gratitude. 

I often think of one home that I used to 
visit. The first time I w^ent there the wife 
was sick with fever; but a little simple 
treatment soon brought her relief. Ever 
afterward there was always a warm welcome 
awaiting me, and the simple village hospital- 
ity would be shown. They were poor peo- 
ple who had not much of this world's goods, 
but just a drink of cool water is a great 
blessing when one has tramped for miles 
across the rice fields. " Will you drink 
water, saya? " the woman would always ask 
me; and receiving assent, away she would go 
and get the fancy glass decanter, reserved for 
special occasions; and after thoroughly rins- 
ing it, she would fill it with water, carefully 
straining it through a handkerchief. The 
handkerchief was always brought from the 
inside room, folded up, so one was encour- 
aged to hope that it was kept for this special 
use; but I am not sure that it was. At any 
rate, my humble friend was doing the best 
for me that she knew how, and I appreciated 
her willingness. 



164 Afoot and Afloat Through Burma 

It was through the dispensary work that 
Pa Khay first came to the school at Kama- 
maung. He had been sick for some time, so 
his mother brought him to the dispensary 
to see what could be done for him. While 
he was waiting his turn to be attended to, 
he lay down on the floor to pass the time 
studying the gospel pictures hanging on the 
walls. Somehow he did not seem satisfied 
with what he found; and when he was asked 
what he wanted, he said he wanted to see 
Adam and Eve. 

We were surprised, for none of the mission 
workers remembered having seen the boy 
before; but Pa Khay soon told them all 
about himself. He lived in a village in 
which a lecture had been given one night 
a year or more before, and at which a Sab- 
bath school picture roll was shown and ex- 
plained. Although he was just a little hea- 
then village boy, he remembered what had 
been said and shown concerning the garden 
of Eden; and how, because they had dis- 
obeyed God, Adam and Eve had been driven 
out, the gate being guarded by the angel 
with the flaming sword. 



Helping the Sick 165 

Of course, the pictures of Adam and Eve 
were again shown to him, as also many oth- 
ers; and he was told that if he came to school 
he would learn much more about them, and 
see still other pictures. Pa Khay wanted to 
start in school at once, but his mother was 
not willing; for little village boys are ex- 
pected to look after the oxen and the buffa- 
loes, and to scare the birds off the rice crops, 
and do many other chores. After some time 
he fell sick again, and his mother thought 
that it would be a good thing to leave him 
in school, so that he could be near the dis- 
pensary; and there he is now, studying hard, 
and learning of the new earth, where, if he 
trusts in Jesus as his Saviour, he will meet 
the real Adam and Eve, and many others of 
whom he first learned from the lecture and 
the pictures. 



BUILDING A BAMBOO HOUSE 

Giant Bamboos — Tying a House Together — Dislike 
of Hard Work — Fighting Fire — One-Story Houses 

Saw Ohn BuinT had been in the school 
at Kamamaung for about a year. When he 
returned home during the holidays, he told 
his friends that he intended to become a 
Christian. This made them quite angry, for 
they were animists, and thought that some 
great evil would happen to them if he should 
cease to make offerings to the spirits. They 
told him that if he did not change his mind, 
they would not help him to go to school any 
more. 

The young man was quite determined, 
however, to stay on and study more about the 
way of salvation, so he went to Elder Hare, 
who was in charge at Kamamaung, and told 
him of his difficulty. Could anything be 
done to help him continue his education? 
Yes, a way seemed open. 

Somebody has to go down to the river 
and carry the water needed in the school and 



1 68 Afoot and Afloat Through Burma 

at the missionaries' house, and a man was 
being employed to do this work, as well as 
to chop the firewood. Ohn Buint was told 
that he could have this work if he would do 
it, and that his wages would be enough to 
keep him in school. 

Now, I should not like to say that the 
village people are lazy, for they do some- 
times work very hard indeed; but many 
times it is only because they know that they 
would stay hungry if they remained idle all 
the time, that they do any work at all ; but 
any idea of doing work just to get an edu- 
cation would be quite out of the question. 
Generally they do just about enough work 
to provide themselves with rice and a few 
other necessities, and then enjoy themselves 
taking life easy the rest of the time. They 
can drop ofif to sleep on a hard floor, and 
with just a large stone or a piece of bamboo 
for a pillow, quicker than any one else I 
have ever seen. Our young friend, though, 
was inspired with the ambition to study, and 
gladly took up the offered work; and he is 
there now, working hard to keep himself 
in school. 



Building a Bamboo House 169 

The time came for the next holidays, 
and the question arose as to whether he 
should go home to his friends again; but 
something else suggested itself. Ohn Buint 
must have new clothes and other supplies, 
and so he was offered work on the new build- 
ing which was to be erected; and this offer 
too was quickly accepted. 

Building work in Burma is often very 
different from what is seen in many other 
countries. They split up bamboos in order 
to make the matting for the walls. Some- 
times the whole house is made of bamboo; 
for there are various kinds of this valuable 
plant, which are used for different parts of 
the building. Bamboo is just like, a giant 
grass plant. 

As I told you in the story about Aung 
Baw's house, some bamboos grow to be seven 
or eight inches thick. These make very good 
posts and beams for houses. Smaller ones 
are put up to make the walls, as also the 
flooring. Shingles for the roof can be made 
by crushing short lengths of bamboo flat. 

Even nails are not necessary when build- 
ing a bamboo house, for short lengths of the 



170 Afoot and Afloat Through Burma 

green bamboo are pared down into thin 
strips about a third of an inch wide; and 
when these are dampened they can be used 
for tying the joints where the different bam- 
boos cross in the framework, or have been 
fitted one into the other, and also for tying 
the shingles or leaves to the roof. 

Perhaps, too, the only tool that will be 
used is a Burmese dah, or long knife. With 
it the holes for the posts are dug in the 
ground. It also serves for all the cutting 
and jointing of the bamboos, and even for 
the paring of the strips with which the joints 
are tied. So you see it is possible to build 
a complete house with nothing but bamboos 
for material. 

" How about the windows, though? " you 
will be almost sure to ask. Well, the vil- 
lage people do not have any glass win- 
dows; but they are content to have a little 
door in the wall which they can open, if 
desired, to let in light and air. Then, too, 
the whole of the front of a bamboo house is 
made like a big flap, so that it can be lifted 
up and held open with two stout sticks. In 
fact, this is frequently all there is in the way 



Building a Bamboo House 171 

of a door; and at night the flap is let down 
and fastened on the inside, so as to keep 
out animals. 

The school building at Kamamaung 
which Ohn Buint helped to erect has a 
wooden frame and floor. This was secured 
by buying an old house somewhere across 
the river. After it was purchased it was 
pulled down, and the wood carted to the 
river, where it was tied together to form a 
rough raft; and then the whole was towed 
across the stream behind the little mission 
launch. 

After building the house, a well was also 
dug, and a good brick lining put in. Now 
in the rainy season when the river is muddy, 
there is no trouble about getting good water 
for household use. The bricks for this work 
were all sorted out from a broken-down 
building which was on the land before the 
mission bought it. Thus the well cost very 
little money. 

If you had to live in a bamboo house 
in a cold country, I fear you would find it 
very drafty; but in a warm country it is 
really an advantage to have the walls of 



172 Afoot and Afloat Through Burma 

bamboo, for they let in plenty of air, and 
so keep the house cool. In the middle of 
the dry season, though, that is, during De- 
cember, January, and February, it is fre- 
quently quite cool in the early hours of the 
morning, and one feels glad to nestle down 
into a good blanket. 

The villagers do not usually have much 
of that kind of comfort, however, so they 
huddle up in what they do have until the 
raw morning air makes them feel too cold 
to sleep. Perhaps they will then go out and 
build a fire of bamboo leaves and other 
rubbish of that sort, and sit around it till 
daylight. Often a whole tree trunk will be 
dragged to the place where the fire is wanted, 
and this is set afire each time warmth is re- 
quired, until it is all burned away. It is 
not the easiest way to light a fire; but then, 
it would mean much work at the beginning 
to chop it up into sticks. It seems just born 
in a Burmese villager to try to avoid hard 
work, even though this may mean a great 
deal more trouble for him in the end. 

Talking about a fire and houses reminds 
me of the arrangements the people often 



Building a Bamboo House 173 

make in case a house should catch fire. 
Where so many houses are built of material 
like bamboo, which burns very readily, you 
can see how a fire might soon spread and 
destroy a whole village, if it were not 
promptly checked. 

In front of each house two long bam- 
boos are kept, one with a hook at the end 
of it, and the other with a fairly broad sheet 
of tin, perhaps cut from an old kerosene oil 
can, fixed to it, making it look very much 
like a long-handled paddle. If a roof takes 
fire, the paddle-like aflair is used to beat the 
flames out; but if the fire has gone too far, 
then the long-handled hook is used to tear 
down the roof rapidly, or the whole house 
if that is deemed necessary. 

Once there was a fire not far from where 
we were living. A large house and timber 
yard were in flames. Near by was a big 
group of bamboo houses, which it was feared 
would soon catch. In order to avoid this, 
the two or three places nearest the fire were 
pulled down; and being of such flimsy ma- 
terial, it was only a few minutes before they 
were all down and bundled away, leaving a 



174 Afoot and Afloat Through Burma 

broad gap over which the fire could not 
pass. 

Sometimes there is a big packing case on 
round wooden wheels, standing on the front 
veranda of a Burmese house. This is in- 
tended to be ready to wheel away the house- 
hold possessions, should a fire make it nec- 
essary. 

An old-time Burmese house had always 
just the one floor, for the people thought it 
would not be at all right to have somebody 
walking over their heads, as would be the 
case if there were two or more stories in a 
house. Even when traveling on the railway, 
some of them regard the upper sleeping 
berths as the more honorable; and I have 
had my fellow travelers urge me to take the 
upper bed, as they thought it disrespectful 
to sleep over me, as they must do if I had 
the lower berth. 

In most of the houses there is not much 
in the way of furniture, for the people sit 
and sleep on the floor. At mealtimes they sit 
around a bowl of rice, with smaller dishes 
of curry or some other relishes standing by, 
and then each helps himself to rice, perhaps 



Building a Bamboo House 175 

with his hand, putting it into his own small 
dish, and spooning the curry over it. The 
food is put into the mouth with the fingers. 
Hanging up in many houses is to be 
seen a cocoanut, which is there in honor of a 
certain spirit whom a king in ancient times 
once ordered to be reverenced in this way. 
There is a little shrine too, in front of which 
flowers and leaves are offered. All this is 
not right according to Buddhist teachings; 
but it is just one of the customs which show 
us that the people are not really Buddhists 
at all, but animists, or worshipers of spirits 
which are supposed to live in trees and ani- 
mals and other things. 







J 



c^ 



CANVASSING ON THE RIVER 
LAUNCHES 

River Steamers — Getting Subscriptions — Government 
Dredges — Various Ways of Cooking Rice 

We are to go out canvassing this morning. 
Down at the jetty the launches are ready 
to start out to their various destinations. 
Farther upstream are the larger steamers 
that make the journey to Mandalay, a week's 
trip; and then from that point onward still 
other boats continue the service, going far 
up into the interior of Burma, along the 
Chindwin River or on the upper reaches of 
the Irrawaddy. 

Three large boats carry hundreds of pas- 
sengers, besides much cargo. Some of them 
are like floating markets; for when they 
stop at the various towns along the river, a 
great deal of trading is carried on between 
the villagers and the passengers. This morn- 
ing we are to travel by one of the smaller 
launches, which make shorter day trips to 
near-by towns. 



178 Afoot and Afloat Through Burma 

We have brought a supply of food and 
drinking water with us, also our bedding and 
cots, so are ready for a trip lasting some 
days. Maung Nge is used to it, you see, for 
he takes our packages straight up to a com- 
fortable corner of the deck, where we shall 
not have other passengers climbing over us. 

Except in the little cabin up in front of 
the launch, where chairs are provided, the 
passengers make themselves comfortable on 
the deck. For two pice a little bamboo mat 
can be hired from the refreshment seller, 
and this is all the average Burman needs 
in the way of equipment for a good sleep. 
Perhaps he may have a small bundle with 
him which will serve as a pillow; but if not, 
he will get along very well without it. 

As soon as the launch has started and the 
man has checked over the passengers' tickets, 
we start our canvassing. Nearly every one 
can read, yet nobody seems to have thought 
to bring along anything to read, so we do not 
have any difficulty in finding customers. 

" See, friend, here is a good paper that has 
much interesting news in it. If you give 
me your name and address, I will send it 



On the River Launches 179 

to you every time it is printed, and it will 
cost you only six annas a year. It is printed 
in Rangoon four times a year." 

This is the way we talk to a Burman 
sitting alongside. 

"O my mother!" he exclaims to his 
friend next him; " here is a European selling 
newspapers to us." The very novelty of the 
idea appeals to him, and the paper is at- 
tractive in its appearance; so after a little 
conversation with us, he purchases a copy. 

Thus we go around the boat, Maung Nge 
doing his share too, and it is not long before 
a number of papers have been disposed of; 
for with passengers getting on and off all 
the while, there are always some new ones 
to canvass, and we really do not have time 
to find the day's journey tiring. One and 
another, after having read through the pa- 
per, come and chat with us, so that we 
make many friends. 

Of course, at the different villages along 
the river there are views of interest all the 
while. Just now we are traveling through a 
canal which the government is widening so 
as to shorten the distance to Mandalay for 



i8o Afoot and Afloat Through Burma 

the large steamers. Great dredges suck up 
the mud and pump it out behind the banks 
which have been built up, where it settles 
down and enriches the soil. Here are some 
of the rice mills I have already told you 
about. 

For a long distance the water is covered 
with floating paddy husk, which mixes with 
the masses of water hyacinth that drift about. 

Everywhere the village people seem to 
have something in the way of eatables for 
sale. Sometimes it is bananas, or pieces of 
jack fruit; or it may be they have various 
kinds of curry for sale, little packages of it 
being folded up in fresh leaves. Then 
there is rice cooked in a variety of ways. 
One method is to mix the raw rice with 
grated cocoanut, and pour it into a twelve- 
inch length of thin bamboo, in which it is 
cooked and sold. The buyer then splits ofif 
the bamboo casing, and finds the rice inside 
with a skin of pitch over it, much like a 
long, thin sausage. 

This delicacy may suit the Burman very 
well; but you no doubt would find it very 
hard to digest, perhaps because it has been 



On the River Launches i8i 

cooked with insufficient water. Its flavor, 
though, is quite agreeable. 

Rice may be "popped;" or it may be 
boiled and afterward made up into thin, flat 
cakes, held together with thin treacle, and 
perhaps ornamented on the top with stifif 
sugar. 

Another delicacy is sugar made from the 
juice of the palmyra tree. When this is 
fresh, it is really very nice. 

Some cattle are waiting on the bank, 
ready to come on the launch. The loading 
of them is generally done with much shout- 
ing. There is no proper landing place, the 
nose of the launch being pushed against 
the muddy bank and kept there till all is 
ready for starting again ; but for the benefit 
of the animals an extra wide gangplank is 
run out to the shore. Even so, the oxen seem 
to object to walking up quietly; so the look- 
ers-on must come and lend their aid by push- 
ing and pulling each beast up in turn. 

Sometimes one will suddenly decide to 
hurry on board, with the result that the 
man who has been tugging at its nose rope, in 
his anxiety to get out of the way, topples 




Cover of Our Burniese Paper 



On the River Launches 183 

over backward into the water with a splash, 
amid the jeers and laughter of the crowd. 
Meanwhile the serang, or native captain, of 
the launch, is growing excited at the delay, 
and begins to add to the general uproar by 
shouting and urging everybody to hurry up. 

When it comes to landing the cattle, there 
is far less trouble; for the man in charge of 
them just gives each one an encouraging 
push, with a twist of the tail if the push 
does not suffice, and splash they go into the 
river, swimming ashore as best they can. 

Now we have arrived at the place where 
the launch stops for the night. We are to 
travel on to another town tomorrow, so will 
transfer our baggage to a dififerent launch, 
and there make ourselves comfortable for 
the night. After having our supper, we can 
go ashore for a short walk before retiring to 
sleep. 

Ml down the streets of this little town 
there are stalls set up by night. It almost 
seems as if each person in the place has a 
stall of some kind, trying to get his neigh- 
bors to buy something, if only a few roasted 
peanuts or some short lengths of sugar cane. 



184 Afoot and Afloat Through Burma 

Over on that little mound the outlines of 
the pagoda can be easily seen, for some 
pious persons have provided an electric-light 
outfit, so that the building is decorated with 
strings of brilliant lights. This seems to be 
the very latest " fashion " in Burmese reli- 
gious customs. 

Judging by the sounds of music, there 
must be a performance going on. Such 
amusements are almost always given in the 
open air and at nighttime. 

Ah, I see that this is a puppet show. A 
rough staging about two or three feet high 
has been built, with a low background of 
matting. Behind this screen the operators 
are moving about, the upper parts of their 
bodies being more or less hidden by a curtain 
which hangs over the front edge of the stage, 
but stops short of the floor by some four feet. 
Each operator is holding a gaudily dressed 
doll suspended from a number of strings, by 
pulling which the puppet is made to dance 
and skip about, as if it were an actor going 
through his part in a dramatic performance. 

The dolls are supposed to represent fig- 
ures in well-known stories, which are acted 



On the River Launches 185 

out in this simple way time and time again. 
The audience sits on the ground in front. 
The people doze when they feel tired, carry 
on conversations with their friends, and occa- 
sionally take notice of what is going on for 
their amusement. The band sit? somewhere 
near the stage, playing music appropriate 
to the part of the story that is being acted. 
The young man with the long bamboo clap- 
per seems to enjoy making a noise, and works 
his tool, for we cannot call it an instrument, 
with great vigor. A high-pitched flute sets 
the real tune, which is filled out by gongs 
and drums tuned to a kind of scale. One 
has to acquire a taste for this kind of music, 
for I do not think it comes naturally to any 
foreigner. 

We must get back to the launch now, for 
our night's rest will be very short. Early in 
the morning the men will begin firing the 
boilers ready for the day's run, and then 
there will be too much noise for further 
sleep. 

Mosquito curtains are a necessity here, 
for in such a damp place as this Irrawaddy 
delta, these troublesome little insects fly 



1 86 Afoot and Afloat Through Burma 

around in great numbers. Once I was in 
a town where they were particularly bad, 
even ponies being sheltered by nets at night. 

Traveling around in this way one meets 
many friends, for it never seems hard to 
make the acquaintance of a Burman or a 
Karen fellow passenger. Different ones have 
invited us to visit them at their homes, where 
we were very kindly entertained. Of course, 
to the missionary " making acquaintance " 
means the gaining of opportunities for telling 
others of the gospel message. 

When we reach our destination, we must 
carefully canvass the whole town. This will 
take us two or three days; so for the time of 
our stay we will live at the dak bungalow, 
unless we meet some friend who invites us to 
his house. Up and down each street we go, 
calling at every house with our papers, and 
by the time the day is over we find that many 
have been disposed of. Even the Chinese 
pawnbrokers and liquor sellers readily buy 
the Chinese papers we have, while men from 
different parts of India come to us for the 
papers in their various languages. Although 
it is not possible for us to do more than 



On the River Launches 187 

carry on a casual conversation with many of 
those we meet, yet we leave with all a silent 
messenger giving them the story in their 
mother tongue. 

Up and down the railway and steamer 
routes, and in the parts where these facilities 
do not exist, our canvassers have gone and 
still go; and in this way the work is reaching 
out all over the country. 




Burmese Aboard a Launch 




u. &u. 



Market Day in Burma 



In Upper Burma it is customary for each town to hold a market, 
or saygyi, every five days. 



MARKET DAY 

Buying Food, Dresses, and Flowers — Brass Wire Coils 
as Ornaments — Ngapi — Lacquer Ware — Beggars 

" Saya, tomorrow will be zay gyi; what 
am I to buy? " The boarding master had 
come for his instructions as to the supplies 
he was to purchase for the feeding of the 
school. Early in the morning he would have 
to go down to the market in the bullock cart, 
and bring back the rice, the onions, the gar- 
lic, the spices, and all the other odds and 
ends that go to make up a Burman bill of 
fare. 

In Upper Burma it is customary for each 
large town to hold a market, or zay gyi, as 
it is called, every five days. From all over 
the country the farmers come in with their 
produce; and from a very early hour the 
sound of creaking carts reminds us that today 
we must lay in supplies sufficient for the 
week. In between these special days the 
market places are almost, if not quite, empty 
and deserted. 



190 Afoot and Afloat Through Burma 

The market is a great place to see the 
people. Everybody seems to find some busi- 
ness to bring him to the fair. 

Come along to the Taung-gyi bazaar and 
see the sights. The man who has just gone 
by in a motor car is the sawbwa, or native 
ruler, of a near-by state. With his broad- 
brimmed straw hat flapping over his head, 
and his none too tidy clothes, one would 
hardly credit him with being a prince; but 
nevertheless he has extensive power in his 
own state, and is a wealthy man. His haw, 
or palace, might seem to us to be a fairly 
substantial and somewhat elaborate barn; 
but compared with the surrounding houses 
it is imposing enough in its way. 

Some sawbwas have very fine palaces on 
quite modern lines. There are a number of 
these chiefs in the Shan States, each with his 
own realm; and many of them are very en- 
lightened men, keen to develop the resources 
of their domains and to improve the lot of 
their people. Although they are under the 
general control of the British government, 
within their own states the sawbwas admin- 
ister justice, often in more of a fatherly way 



Market Day 191 

than one finds in British Burma to the south. 
The petty offender, instead of being shut up 
in prison for a few weeks, may find himself 
triced up in the market place to receive in 
public a good sound beating with a substan- 
tial cane. 

Well, now, here is the market in this 
fenced-in inclosure. What cartloads of cab- 
bages and potatoes, what sacks of chilies, 
and baskets of onions and garlic! Here are 
some eggs, perhaps of doubtful age. In some 
markets one does not have to worry about 
the freshness of the eggs, as the shopman is 
careful to see to that, since he can sell the 
stale ones for more than the fresh, his Chi- 
nese customers preferring those that we 
would call " bad." Many of the village 
people do not often eat the eggs themselves, 
but leave them for the birds to hatch out. 
If ever any of our friends bring us a gift 
of eggs, we take this into account, and are 
prepared to find eight out of ten beyond all 
hope of our using them. Our Karen servant 
girl was quite surprised one time when, 
after trying hard to secure some eggs, and a 
dozen having unexpectedly been brought to 



192 Afoot and Afloat Through Burma 

us, we refused to eat nine of them, just be- 
cause they were black and evil-smelling 
inside ! 

It is of no use trying to bargain with 
these rustics for their produce, for they have 
a fixed price from which they refuse to vary. 
A friend of mine once had an amusing ex- 
perience with one of them. She was not 
very well versed in Burmese, and so found it 
hard to catch what the toothless old vege- 
table woman, with her mouth full of betel 
nut, was mumbling in response to her query 
as to the price of the wares. In despair she 
offered four annas for what she wanted, 
thinking that a fair price. The old woman 
refused, so the offer was raised to five annas; 
but even this was positively refused, the old 
dame continuing to splutter out her own 
price. Eventually it turned out that the real 
price asked was three and a half annas; and 
having left her home that day determined 
to sell her wares at that price, nothing could 
induce the old woman to accept anything 
else, even though she was offered more. 

By evening all the produce will have 
been sold out, and in its place the farmers 



Market Day 193 

will have bought the things they need. Per- 
haps it is a new dah, or a fresh plow point; 
or maybe the time has come to buy some new 
clothes. What bargaining there will be at 
the cloth stall, with its piles of bright- 
colored cotton prints! What solemn discus- 
sions and careful deliberation, as if the fate 
of nations hung on the spending of four or 
five rupees ! 

Old grandfather will tell stories of how 
his mother used to weave all the cloth they 
needed; and the father will have his tale to 
tell of the wonderfully cheap silks he used 
to buy in Mandalay when he was the boh's 
(foreign gentleman's) servant. The pert 
young woman will toss her head and tell the 
kullah (Indian) shopkeeper that she saw far 
finer cloth at the last pagoda festival; and 
so they will go on till mother, who is the 
real business head of the group, makes up 
her mind what she thinks is right, and buys 
it. Still, it was very pleasant to have had the 
kullah bring down piece after piece so that 
one could admire the pretty colors; for the 
pleasure of shopping seems the same the 
world over. 




International 

Karen Woman Wearing Brass Ornaments 

Some women wear coils of brass wire on their arms and 

legs ; others have the wire coiled around their necks, 

resulting in a very uncomfortable stretching. 



Market Day 195 

As a nation the Burmans have wonder- 
ful taste in colors, and a crowd of holiday 
makers in their best clothes make a most 
pleasing picture. When Madame Fashion- 
able goes out for the day, she usually wears 
an old skirt under her bright new one, so 
that when she comes to ride in the canoes 
or the bullock cart, the best one can be 
slipped off and folded up till the journey's 
end is reached, when once again she will 
array herself *in all her glory, recombing her 
long black tresses, adjusting her switch of 
false hair, and touching up her complexion 
with a little sandalwood paste; and all in 
full view of the public. 

The cloth merchants in the market will 
sell yards and yards of the pretty prints, and 
the tailors with their machines will be kept 
busy all day long sewing up the cloth that 
the farmers have bought. 

As a rule, Burmese clothing does not take 
much making, for both men and women 
commonly wear a skirt which is little more 
than a yard and a half of cloth with the two 
ends sewed together. The usual coat, or 
aingyee, is of very simple design too. Here 



196 Afoot and Afloat Through Burma 

in the Shan States different styles of dress are 
to be seen, for many men wear a loose, baggy 
type of trousers, while some of the women 
too wear trousers. In contrast to the brilliant 
colors of the Burmese styles, these trousered 
women wear black, the loose shirt as well as 
the trousers being of that somber hue. 

There! do you notice that woman over 
there dressed in that style? She is also 
wearing the adornment many of her tribe 
afifect, which consists of a coil of stout brass 
wire wound round and round each leg just 
below the knee. In some places the women 
wear similar coils on their arms; while still 
others have the wire coiled around their 
necks, this latter style resulting in what seems 
to a stranger as being a very uncomfortable 
stretching of the neck. Earrings and nose 
rings find their wearers too, while finger 
rings, necklaces, and collar buttons afford 
other means of personal adornment. Women 
in Burma do not seem to favor the cumber- 
some silver foot and toe ornaments so com- 
monly seen in parts of India; but in both 
countries the decking out of the women in 
jewelry seems to be a way of storing up 



Market Day 197 

wealth ; for village people have not learned 
to have full confidence in banks. 

The market would not be complete with- 
out a plentiful supply of eating shops; and 
sure enough, here they are. Some are mere 
baskets set down by the roadside, around 
which the customers squat and eat their pur- 
chases; while others have a little modern 
spirit about them, being fixed up with some 
sort of table, furnished with bowls and 
spoons, and drinking glasses of thick green 
glass. Perhaps by way of decoration there 
are bottles of highly colored fruit sirups set 
out in orderly array. 

Such strange-looking foods, you will say. 
Meat curries with an ominous tint sug- 
gestive of many chilies; fish curries of a 
strangely uninviting odor; these vie with 
hard-boiled eggs as undertaking to form the 
backbone of your next meal. Vegetables 
and green fruits shredded and served with 
spices to make the various kinds of letho, a 
form of salad; peanuts, sugar cane, boiled 
rice, puffed rice, jellies of uncertain constit- 
uency and uninviting appearance, pancakes, 
unleavened bread, biscuits, all are in demand. 



198 Afoot and Afloat Through Burma 

European bread has its devotees too, and 
is a great delicacy to some, judging by the 
eagerness with which these children are 
eating it with salt. Once I gave medicine 
to a villager's little girl, and by way of pay- 
ment he offered me a loaf brought from the 
market two days previously. I found some 
excuse for refusing it, for the sight of his 
bringing it in his grimy hands, soiled and 
unwashed after helping me with my '' pa- 
tient," and of his knocking the loaf on his 
dirty coat sleeve in an endeavor to induce 
the ants to surrender their possession of the 
bread, convinced me that should I take it, 
the bread would only be wasted, for I never 
could have found an appetite to eat it. 

It is no wonder there is such a variety 
of foods for sale, for there are so many dif- 
ferent national palates to cater to. If we 
stand and watch, we shall see Burmans, 
Shans, Karens, Taungthus, and Chinamen, 
besides Indians of various races; and all of 
them seem to have their peculiar delicacies. 
For instance, one authority assures us that 
there are well-marked differences between 
the various kinds of dogs that different tribes 



Market Day 199 

will eat. One tribe is satisfied with any 
dog so long as it has a black palate, while 
another insists on its coat being black too. 
Others, however, are more easily satisfied, 
and will eat any kind they can get, just so it 
is dog. 

So far as Burmans go, the foreigner al- 
ways sums up the national taste in food by 
the one word, '' ngapi/' that evil-smelling 
fish preparation, the name for which is so 
hard to pronounce, but the taste for which 
is still harder to acquire. We have heard 
that there are various sorts of this article. 
Personally we can testify that it is all as 
putrid-smelling as anything could possibly 
be. In general it consists of fish packed with 
salt and allowed to ferment, the result being 
a mass or a stiff paste, according to the 
method of preparation. 

Yet, however obnoxious it may be to our 
foreign taste, both by reason of the none too 
hygienic modes of preparation and of its 
vile smell, there is no doubt whatever that 
to the Burman it is a real delicacy, ranking 
with pumpkin pie and plum pudding in the 
lists of national dishes. 



200 Afoot and Afloat Through Burma 

We must hurry around and see the flower 
sellers with their sweet-smelling wares. In 
most markets there are piles of jasmine and 
roses, picked off without any stalks, the for- 
mer being in great demand for making 
chains for decorating the women's hair, while 
all flowers are used for oflferings at the 
shrines and pagodas. Here are sellers of 
lacquer ware, with their trays and cups and 
betel boxes, decorated with conventional de- 
signs in red and green. There are the um- 
brella sellers, and there the shops where are 
earpicks and nosepicks and nail cleaners, and 
the nippers for cutting betel nut, as also the 
small metal boxes for the lime and spices 
which are mixed with each quid of the nut. 

Here are little tweezers for pulling out 
one's beard, for Burmans do not shave their 
chins, not having enough growth of hair to 
make that worth the effort; but any stray 
hairs that may appear are plucked out root 
and branch. One time on the train I did 
see a fashionable town Burman who was 
stroking his face with a brand-new safety 
razor; but he reminded me of the old story 
of the barber who told the new young cus- 



Market Day 201 

tomer that he had no time to spend shaving 
egg shells! 

The beggars are here also to share in the 
spoils, — beggars with sham sores and beg- 
gars with real ones. We must get used to 
the revolting sight of lepers and cripples 
and deformities, for it seems as if people 
here do not mind exposing their misfortunes 
if that will bring in a steady income. One 
grows rather deaf to the cries of many of 
the beggars, since coming across an actual 
instance of a beggar who brought a police 
court case against a man for stealing fifteen 
hundred rupees, " takings " intrusted to him 
to remit to the beggar's home. 




T TT. & TJ., N. 



A Common Sight in Burma 
One sees long and winding trails of creaking bullock carts. 



INTO THE SHAN HILLS BY 
TRAIN AND CARAVAN 

Floating Islands — Wealth Buried with the Dead in the 
Lake — Pickled Tea — The Gospel in the Hills 

Suddenly the sound of tinkling bells was 
heard, and away the children ran to see what 
was passing by. Presently they came back, 
all breathless from the race, and with little 
Naomi, who had outrun the others, crying 
out, " It's all right, mamma. Nobody's 
married." 

You see she was used to the Indian wed- 
ding processions with the bands of musicians, 
and had thought something of that sort must 
be the cause of the sounds she had just 
heard; but she was now up in the Shan 
States, to the north of Burma, where there 
are many things different from what she was 
accustomed to in our home in Lucknow. 
The music of the tinkling bells really came 
from a string of patient pack oxen which 
were slowly plodding past us along the dusty 
road. 



204 Afoot and Afloat Through Burma 

From the big port of Rangoon down near 
the seacoast, the railway runs north and 
stretches out its iron arms in many direc- 
tions, gathering some of the wealth of Burma 
to carry away for the use of the world, and 
bringing in exchange the many things that 
other countries make and Burmans need. 

Beyond the railway, the old, old times 
and ways have hardly changed; one still sees 
the long and winding trails of creaking bul- 
lock carts, massive elephants swinging along 
in their great strength, the slow-moving 
strings of patient pack oxen, with the cheery 
tinkle, tinkle, of their bells. There are the 
sturdy human carriers, each with his yoke 
across his shoulder, or perhaps his load slung 
on his back or from his forehead, and on the 
rivers, great canoes that are rowed, poled, 
or sailed, as the chance may be, and even 
rafts that lend their aid in bringing from 
the far interior the things that men have 
learned to need. 

The railway into the southern Shan States 
has been slowly pushing on for years, and 
now reaches to Heho, across the valley from 
Taung-gyi. Fussy, noisy, greasy motor cars 



By Train and Caravan 205 

snatch up the passengers and the mails as 
they leave the train, and jostle the bullocks 
and the ponies and the carts for the first few 
miles; but on beyond, day in, day out, the 
caravans press on, linking up the far-off bor- 
ders of China w^ith the outside world. 

Another branch of the railway runs to 
Martaban, across the river from Moulmein, 
and from that point launches and country 
boats take up their burdens and carry them 
on to where the pack animals start away for 
the trying journeys over the hills into the 
interior of Siam. So in other directions, too, 
the ways are opened up for the traveler 
whom duty or pleasure calls to these far-off 
countries. 

As we travel along the road, we pass the 
camping places, where at night the loads are 
laid aside, and the tired animals rest their 
weary limbs and browse in peace. A bright 
fire is all the light that is needed, serving 
both to cook the drivers' meal and to scare 
away any prowling beasts of prey. 

With the early morning light the camp is 
astir, and in due time the big panniers are 
loaded onto the cattle, or the animals are 



2o6 Afoot and Afloat Through Burma 

yoked to the carts, and another day's march 
is started. The bells of the pack oxen begin 
their tinkling once again, as they swing from 
the frames fixed over the pack saddles. 

How the wheels of the carts do creak! 
To our foreign ears the sound, at first espe- 
cially, is anything but pleasant; but to the 
drowsy driver dozing on his load, it seems 
to be a lullaby, singing to him that all is 
well and moving. All at once the noise dies 
down, and his sleep is disturbed. Raising 
one heavy eyelid, he sees the cause. Another 
cart has come from the opposite direction, 
its driver also is sleeping; and as both are in 
the center of the road, the oxen in each 
cart have stopped, and now stand blinking 
at each other, as if in anticipation of the 
torrent of threats and yells that is soon to 
descend upon them. 

Each man seizes a stick and with it jabs 
and pokes his animals, the guiding of which 
consists of little more than poking them. 
With heads thrown high to avoid the pain- 
ful strain on the nose ropes, and with tongues 
lolling out, the oxen pull and tug under the 
yokes, as if determined to go the wrong way 



By Train and Caravan 207 

after all. In due time, though, the drivers' 
yelling and beating produce the desired re- 
sult, and the carts creak past each other, one 
going down the bank on the low^er side of 
the road, and the other into the drain on the 
upper. Soon all is steady creaking again, 
and the driver can settle down for another 
good nap. 

Perhaps the motor car carrying the mails 
disturbs him next; and he must be careful 
this time lest the shrieking horn which warns 
him of its approach, and the noise of the 
machinery, frighten his oxen, sending them 
scampering over the side of the road, maybe 
upsetting the cart, and delaying him with a 
broken axle or some other mishap of that 
description. If any accident like this should 
occur, then he and his friends will have 
to draw in by the side of the road, and 
between them repair the damage. 

Little more than ten miles is covered in 
a day; so the coming of the railway means 
that a journey that formerly took a week, 
can now be completed in a few hours. On 
beyond, the road stretches for some hundreds 
of miles, not so well made as nearer in, but 



By Train and Caravan 209 

well enough for the heavy carts and the cat- 
tle to pick their way over; and we learn that 
it is some twenty-four or more " halts," or 
days' journeys, to one far-ofif town, which 
even then is a long way from the borderline. 

Ofif to the south of the caravan road in 
the southern Shan States, not far from where 
the railway now reaches, is a great lake, 
which is very interesting by reason of what 
are called the floating islands. These seem 
to be great masses of vegetation all matted 
and twisted together, that drift about on the 
surface of the water. Local legends have it 
that much wealth lies hidden in these places, 
protected by the spirits of the air, which 
would instantly pounce on any mortal who 
might make bold enough to search for the 
treasure. 

It is said to have been a custom here to 
bury half of a man's wealth with his body, 
and as the method of burying consists in fas- 
tening the dead bodies to the bottom of the 
lake with stakes, it is at once easy to under- 
stand the origin of the legends of buried 
wealth, and why a superstitious people 
should be afraid to search for it. 
14 



2IO Afoot and Afloat Through Burma 

Very probably, if an attempt should be 
made in daylight to recover any of it, the 
supposed spirit guardians would not exert 
themselves, as the villagers would show their 
resentment of the interference with their 
dead by driving off the intruders. As for 
hunting for the wealth under cover of dark- 
ness, far from venturing out in such a lonely 
place for any reward whatever, the average 
Burman is almost too scared to walk down 
a village street after dark, and must needs 
sing aloud and clap his hands to scare away 
the powers of evil. 

It would seem that some bold spirits 
have got the better of their fears, for one 
hears tales of families which have suddenly 
become wealthy in some mysterious way. 
One such family that I heard of explains its 
good fortune in this way: 

It happened that one dark night a poor 
villager was crossing the lake in his boat, 
when all of a sudden another canoe came 
alongside his, shooting out from behind one 
of the floating islands, an old withered-up 
woman being the only occupant of it. She 
earnestly begged the man. as an act of char- 



By Train and Caravan 211 

ity, to bring her a packet of pickled tea 
from the village; and although he had only 
a few copper coins in the world, he prom- 
ised to do so. Returning home, he was as 
good as his word, bringing the desired deli- 
cacy with him, and giving it to the old 
woman when he met her at the appointed 
place. 

In return for his kindness she gave him 
a basket, and when he arrived home, he 
found to his joy that this basket contained 
money; and though he, and his family after 
him, have been taking money out of it ever 
since, it has never emptied, but still con- 
tinues to supply their needs. 

Well, this is the story as it has come to 
me; but the only thing about it that I know 
to be true is, that this particular family is 
certainly very wealthy. The story they tell 
of the source of their wealth is possibly only 
their way of covering the fact that some of 
their ancestors ventured out onto the lake 
and robbed the dead of the riches buried 
with them. 

Pickled tea will seem to you such a 
strange delicacy that I must tell you some- 



212 Afoot and Afloat Through Burma 

thing about it before I close. The green tea 
leaves are taken and dried in the sun for a 
few days, after which they are steamed, this 
last process removing some of the tannin 
from them. After this the leaves are pressed 
down into small brick-lined pits and left to 
ferment. Mixed with salt, this preparation 
is considered a great delicacy by the people 
of Burma. It is also used in a formal way, 
as for instance, a small package of pickled 
tea, dressed with oil and spices {lipet, the 
Burmese call it), is sent to one whom it is 
desired to invite to some ceremony. The 
eating together of pickled tea by the parents 
of the young couple, is the national way of 
ratifying the marriage contract, the similar 
chewing of betel nut being part of the same 
ceremony. 

The region of the Shan Hills of Burma 
is one of the " corners of the earth " to which 
the gospel message is to be taken, and from 
which redeemed ones will be gathered in the 
day of the harvest. Even here our canvass- 
ers are pressing forward, taking with them 
the literature which warns men of the im- 
pending crisis. Too, students are brought 



By Train and Caravan 



213 



into our schools, that they, having learned 
for themselves, may carry the good news 
back to their own people. 




A Monastery in Burma 

It is the rule for every Buddhist boy in Burma to pass a short 
time in the m^onastery, wearing the yellow robe, and receiv- 
ing special teaching in his religious duties. 
(See page 102) 



IN CONCLUSION 

A Map Study — Rangoon — Burmans' Dislike of Heavy 
Work — Modern Conveniences in Rangoon — Schools 

Now that we have taken a peep at some 
of the people of Burma and their lives and 
homes, let us remember something of the 
country in which they live. It is often true 
that the country itself has had much to do 
in making the people what they are. 

Just look at the map of Burma, and you 
will see that in the north and west it is joined 
to India by land, while on the east it touches 
China and Siam. Although that is the case, 
it is much easier to enter Burma from the 
sea, since high mountains shut it off almost 
entirely on every other side. Because of 
this, it is not possible to go to Burma by 
railway from any other country, and nearly 
everybody who goes there enters Rangoon, 
the big port near the sea on one of the many 
mouths of the Irrawaddy. One can enter 
at Bassein and Moulmein also; but not many 
people go that way, because Rangoon is so 



2i6 Afoot and Afloat Through Burma 

many times larger than the other places. 
Ocean steamers also call at such ports as 
Tavoy, Mergui, and Akyab; but each of 
these places is so shut off from the rest of 
the country by rough land that nobody 
would think of them as gates into Burma. 

You can look on the map for all the 
ports I have mentioned; and then you must 
try to picture in your mind the great car- 
goes of rice that the steamers receive at Bas- 
sein, Akyab, and Moulmein, and also the val- 
uable wood which is sent out from the latter 
place. Tavoy and Mergui are the places 
where tin and wolfram and other valuable 
metals are shipped; while Rangoon, the 
greatest port of them all, sends away vast 
stores of rice, wood, and oil, and other kinds 
of merchandise too numerous to mention. 

In a few places, there are tracks over 
the mountains from Siam and China, along 
which the caravans slowly wend their way; 
and they are important, too, in that they seem 
to have provided the way into Burma for the 
different tribes who now live there. Even 
today there are bands of people constantly 
pressing over the borders from China. 



In Conclusion 217 

It is far more difficult to cross the moun- 
tains which separate Burma from India; and 
so we find that the peoples of Burma are 
more like their neighbors across the Salwin, 
that is, the Siamese and Chinese, than the 
Indian races; and the general appearance of 
the people, as well as their languages, differs 
much from those we find in India, although 
Burma and India are parts of the same gov- 
ernment known as the Indian Empire. 

I want you to take careful notice of the 
city of Rangoon. Even before the railway 
was built, Rangoon had begun to be the most 
important place in Burma; for the mighty 
Irrawaddy River stretches for hundreds of 
miles north, right up through the center of 
the country; and on its broad and quiet 
waters are borne numberless craft, both large 
and small, bringing to the port at its mouth 
the treasures of the province. Now the rail- 
way has come, it has added to the ease with 
which one can reach Rangoon from any lo- 
cation inland; and see how it has stolen in 
behind both Moulmein and Bassein, taking 
away much of the produce that used to be 
floated down to these ports and shipped from 



2i8 Afoot and Afloat Through Burma 

them. Some day it may serve Akyab the 
same way. 

If you could come with me from the sea, 
up the river to Rangoon, I think you might 
be just a little disappointed. After all I 
have told you about the forests and the cara- 
vans, and the people in their little villages, 
you would be expecting to see something of 
them right away; but at first you would see 
nothing but a very low-lying, muddy shore, 
with a few cocoanut palms. 

Soon the tall chimneys and the big steel 
reservoirs of the oil works would be seen ; 
and then still farther up, over and above 
everything else would be seen shining the 
great golden pagoda, the Shwe Dagon. A 
large amount of money has been spent to 
cover the top of this building with real 
gold plates; and as it is often cleaned, it 
shines brilliantly in the sunlight. Other fa- 
mous pagodas are frequently gilded over, 
like the one at Moulmein. At that place the 
pagoda is high up on the summit of the 
ridge of hills which rise sharply behind the 
town. At certain times of the year there is 
generally a dense white morning mist which 



In Conclusion 219 

completely hides the town; and then as the 
sun gets higher and higher, and shines on 
the golden building on the hilltop, the pa- 
goda seems like a great golden bell floating 
in the clouds. 

All the way up the river to Rangoon 
you would have been looking out for some 
Burmese people, to see what they look like; 
but you might get right up to the steamer 
wharf, and even have been landed there for 
some time, before you would have seen a 
single Burman, although there might be 
crowds of people about all the time. There 
would be Indians, and Chinamen, and Eu- 
ropeans, but perhaps not a Burman.. 

Of course, there are really thousands of 
Burmans in Rangoon; but they do not gen- 
erally like such work as is done by the por- 
ters on the wharves, or even by the boat- 
men; and the sturdy coolies from South In- 
dia have come over by the hundreds of thou- 
sands to Burma to do the heavy manual 
work, while Mohammedans from Chittagong 
in India seem to do nearly all the river 
work, even running many of the little fer- 
ries across the rivers for miles inland. 



In Conclusion 221 

Landed in Rangoon, we should find a 
well-built and clean city; and more and more 
it is becoming like the cities of Western 
lands, with substantial buildings, electric 
lights, and street cars, and all those conven- 
iences we are used to in our own countries. 
Out in the western end of the town many 
Burmans would be found, some even in bam- 
boo houses; but because of the danger of fire 
from having such flimsy structures in a 
crowded city, they are gradually becoming 
less and less. If a fire does break out in a 
group of these houses, perhaps hundreds will 
be burned before it can be put out; and then 
slowly the more substantial brick buildings 
w^ill take the place of those the fire has 
destroyed. 

Rangoon has a number of fine, large 
schools, as well as two colleges ; so the Bur- 
mese boys who live in the town can go to 
school, as many of them do. Not only do 
they learn the regular lessons, but they also 
notice how other people live and dress; grad- 
ually their own national customs give way, 
and it is not always easy to recognize Bur- 
mans in the smartly attired young men who 



222 Afoot and Afloat Through Burma 

are to be seen riding their motor cycles, 
wearing helmets, or topees, as we call them, 
to protect their heads from the sun, and with 
all the other things we usually associate with 
Europeans. In their homes, too, these young 
people will be found to have discarded many 
of their old ways of living; and even though 
the easy-chairs and rockers we are accus- 
tomed to are called " foreign seats " in Bur- 
mese, they have learned to prefer them to 
their own style of squatting on the floor, 
although, of course, many do still sit down 
in that way. 

So you see that in Rangoon it is not easy 
to find a picture of true Burmese life; and 
that is why we have looked into the homes 
of our friends in the villages, and have seen 
how it is that they work and live; for they 
represent the great majority of the native 
peoples of Burma. 

It should not be thought that the people 
of Burma are all of one race; for there are 
many different tribes scattered about all over 
the country. In olden times these tribes used 
to war one against another nearly all the 
time; and many are the heaps of ruins which 



In Conclusion 223 

are pointed out to us here and there as being 
all that remains of some former capital. 

These various tribes often have peculiar 
customs which dififer from those of other 
peoples of Burma; so you would not find 
things in every part of Burma just as I have 
told you. This makes the country more in- 
teresting to the foreigner, no matter how 
long he may have lived in it; for all the 
time he can be seeing something new. It 
does make the work of the missionary harder, 
though; for in order to be able to carry on 
his work properly, he must learn the lan- 
guage and the customs of the people among 
whom he is to live. And perhaps after 
studying a language for years, he will still 
find thousands of people living near him 
who can hardly understand what he says, for 
they themselves have a still different mother 
tongue. 

There is, however, a language which all 
can understand and in which every servant 
of Christ should continually seek to improve, 
and that is the language of kindly actions. 
Without this no missionary can have much 
hope of success; for simple though the vil- 



224 Afoot and Afloat Through Burma 

lagers may be, experience has taught them 
that a man's works are of more value than his 
words. So as we come in contact with them, 
we must try to learn their way of doing 
things, and their way of thinking, so that 
while we teach them the way of life, we 
may not hurt their feelings and drive from 
us those whom we seek to win. 

This little tour through Burma has per- 
haps been all too short; but nevertheless our 
hope is that it may serve, not only to arouse 
in some an interest in that pleasant land, but 
also to increase in others the interest they 
already have, that they themselves may come 
to its shores, and in turn strive to win some 
of its people for the Master. 



